Commonly expressed as “Desperate men do desperate deeds”, or “Necessity is a real mother…  ”, or perhaps the sometime cadet assessment “works well when cornered”….   Our bud chwylms knows all about words and he tells me that extremis is the word for exam in Greek, or Latin, or maybe it was Etruscan.  I dunno, I wasn’t really listening.  The setting for this little dit is 4th year Christmas physics exam.   A possible, relevant subtitle for this would be - How we Frame a Problem May Well Suggest the Solution. 

It was a standard fourth-year Christmas physics exam set by our highly-respected professor, Dr Duffus.  There were seven simple, innocent-looking questions at the top of a long sheet of paper and extra blank pages provided for the over-achievers to continue their answers.  A typical question might be: determine the age of a cubic metre of granite given the ratio of two isotopes of a nuclear decay chain.  On this exam many of the questions struck me more like:   A train leaves Montreal at 50 km/hr; John has seven oranges; calculate the mass of the Sun.  In any case I proceeded with the exam and very quickly covered everything I could answer (the minority) and skipped over the questions that completely exceeded my understanding (the majority).   We were all practiced in the black art of marking our own exams and having a fairly good sense of what mark we were likely to receive.  I reviewed my efforts and recognised this exam was going to be a failure.  I kept my spirits up and reviewed it again thinking the prof might be feeling extra-kindly this Christmas season and generous in awarding marks.  No joy; this was still a failing effort.   Since I was no longer busily engaged answering questions I had plenty of time to feel sorry for myself and nurse an entirely unjustified sense of being aggrieved.  Surely I had found myself adrift in other exams but this was different because gosh-darn it I had studied very hard (I thought) and covered the term’s work (relatively speaking).  It was as if the prof had asked the wrong questions.  I remember catching myself and literally thinking: “Wait, what did I just think!? I can work with that…”   I then conducted my own Gedanken Experiment on the subject and explored this further.  (Gedanken is of course from the German and means: “weasels gonna weasel.”)   I considered what might the professor have asked, had he asked the “right” questions?  Amazingly the right questions mapped very well to the topics I had studied.  I was off and running and quickly put those blank pages to good use.  I boldly composed Question 8 and then answered it by: stating governing principles; derived relevant formulae; and worked through a sample problem. I knew this was a great idea when the sample problem worked out beautifully.  For the record the question was on MOSFETs.  (No they are not the fuzzy critters from Star Trek!). Question 9 quickly followed with a similar positive result.   I then quickly re-marked the exam and felt a great sense of relief at what would surely be a passing grade.

My confidence in this brilliant effort was shaken when it occurred to me that there was a chance — however remote — this gambit might not be well-received by the prof.   I had to consider the possibility!  To be clear, this sudden sense of caution was governed less by a mature wisdom and more by a native, feral cunning.  The lizard brain recognised danger ahead. I would need to prepare the professor for this incoming paper lest he be overly startled and become suspicious about my motivation and objectives.  It was time to test the hypothesis.  We had the great benefit of having the relevant professors invigilate their own exams and they were available to resolve any issues in real-time.   I raised my arm and signalled to Dr Duffus I had an issue for his consideration.  Now this part of the negotiation required a certain finesse, nothing that any might describe as being a native trait I exhibited.  I introduced the discussion with the prof by setting the context I hoped he’d adopt in considering my humble (no, really…) effort.  I observed we had covered much material in his course this past term and affirmed the point of the exam was to demonstrate this fact.  He agreed to this obvious truth in the slow, patient voice usually reserved for small children and those who merited special consideration.  I couldn’t delay any further and quickly cut to the heart of the issue and confided he may have asked the wrong questions in this exam.  His eyebrows started a long climb to the North.  I spoke very quickly then as I showed him how I had sought to remedy this shortfall by providing additional, supplementary questions to his exam.  I was concerned as I watched his considerable eye-brows slide further up his face and seemingly chase his receding hairline.  His surprise was evident and I thought that possibly he had never previously encountered such a resourceful (desperate!) effort in his very long career.  I finished with a humble (relative term...) plaintive question that I had to know if I had wasted my time.  Professor Duffus again spoke with that slow patient tone as he told me that were I likely to make 80% anyway then I would have wasted my time, but in my case, surely not.  

The worst part of most exams was the chattering discussion as the gang was leaving the examination hall and the buds were comparing answers to questions I usually could no longer remember.  I let them carry on a while then casually asked what they had put for question 8, and then 9.  All recalled the blank pages at the end of the exam with dismay as they lamented they had missed those questions.  After a merciful, short delay I announced my exam had been blank as well and I had to furnish those questions myself.  That was met with a chorus of statements that I couldn’t do that and I assured them I could, because I had.

Epilogue

In the Spring term everyone who received less than 60% on the Christmas exam had to re-do the exam as an assignment.   Due to the quirky technicality of accepting my exam questions on the professor’s part, and a sad lack of character on mine (I still regret that lapse) I didn’t have to revisit the exam.

Other Epilogue

The first Star Trek movie was released during the Spring term and most of the class trooped off to see it together.  The opening sequence includes a candidate failing the KOBAYASHI MARU training scenario and then asking Captain James T. Kirk how he was the only Star Fleet candidate to pass the challenging (rigged!) scenario.  When Kirk admitted he had reprogrammed the scenario before his training session there was a collective guffaw from the classmates as all heads looked down the row at yours truly.