A MAD MAN’S LEVERAGE: Studying for tomorrows test

Peter looked at the pages of the physics text book intently and tried to grasp every single word on it. It was physics test the following day and he had no intention of failing this time having failed the last one. He knew Mr Salander never brought straight forward questions only acute thinkers who had studied and understood would answer them. He remembered one time what he had said that if he brought straight forward questions in his tests then he was merely cheating himself to have taught precisely to the class. Peter felt that he was callous for he always announced the exact percentage each pupil got in his tests and he called this embarrassment motivation for both those who did well and those who did not. Peter reasoned that each pupil’s results was private and wished that he did not announce them before the class. He did not like it one bit and therefore he wanted to pass the test to avoid the shame of picking up a test paper in front of the class with a below thirty percentage. Peter was prepared to study throughout the night if that’s what it took to pass. He jolted down with a pen the main points of each topic he covered so that later he would revise what he had studied without difficulty. He held his head tightly with both hands and made them pass through his black hair vigorously so as to understand some tedious concepts. He checked his digital clock on the left side of the table and it read 9:30 pm, he didn’t like that for he had a lot of topics to cover. If only he could remember some of the topics they had learnt it was going to be easy but he could not, everything appeared new as if he was seeing them for the first time. He knew he was not that clever but he considered himself to be among those of medium IQ level and hence these things were not supposed to be this opaque.

“My god! People who come up with these concepts, theories and all this other stuff had nothing better to do. How can a grown man like Isaac Newton be busy thinking about what caused the apple to fall from the tree and later writing and forming a whole lot of topics based on the same action of it falling? It’s truly unbelievable,” Peter said to himself as he looked at the page with the heading Force and underneath it had a picture of Isaac Newton carrying an apple and holding his chin under an apple tree.

After a few minutes of him being engrossed in the topic of force his cell phone rang that was towards his pile of books on his right. He quickly picked it up, checked the caller’s name and smiled. He put the cell phone to his right ear.

“Hello, Jake,” Peter said as he smiled.

“Fine buddy. It’s just physics that is killing me. Can’t seem to concentrate. It seems like what I am studying is entering from one side of my head and coming out from the other,” Jake’s voice said through the phone.

“Same here pal. I swear I am this close to going freaking insane,” Peter said as he pushed the chair he was sitting on backwards and stood up.

“Ha-ha! And I thought I was the only one having a tough time,” Jake said at the other end of the line.

“You are not the only one brother. Mr. Salander’s physics tests are a living hell for everyone in all his classes,” Peter said as he walked from the table and threw himself on the bed that shock vigorously.

“For everyone? Do you mean Kelvin, Kate and Susan have problems with his tests too?” Jake asked.

“No not those three. It appears they are the only ones at our school that are absolutely good in every single subject. But for the rest of us we are completely roasted by the fires of hell every time we write Mr. Salander’s test. Every single question is a torment from hell and he is the demon that pushes us back into the flames with a pitch folk when we try to get out,” Peter said while he stretched himself and scratched his chin on the bed, “I heard that one pupil from one grade ten class fainted because of his tests.”

“Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Dude you are crazy. Hey, why don’t we have a break to refresh our weak fragile minds,” Jake said after laughing out loud, troubling Peter’s eardrum to an extent that caused him to remove the phone from his ear for a moment.

“I don’t know about that dude,” Peter said as he scratched his forehead and removed his hair from his face.

“Come on Peter let’s have one. If we continue studying without time to refresh and think of what we have studied then we will surely faint like the pupil you just told me about and guess how famous we will be,” Jake said in a confident mild and convincing manner.

Peter laughed for a few seconds. “Dude don’t you think we will be eating up the little time we have left. I don’t want to be disadvantaged tomorrow.”

“What little time are you referring to? This is 9:40pm and the test will be at 8:00am tomorrow. In approximation we have about ten hours and some minutes. I believe it will be a sin on our part not to spend a few minutes to ourselves so as to help cool our hot nerves after studying for too long,” Jake replied.

Peter scratched the center of his head slowly. “I guess you are right. Like Mr. Smith always says ‘all study and no play made Jimmy or is it Jasmin or was that Bob a dull boy or girl’ in this case. I don’t really remember the exact words but the point is studying throughout can lead to failure. But I can just spare twenty to thirty minutes off the books.”

“Yes sir, thirty minutes will do,” Jake said emphasizing on the time and continued, “I’m actually waiting for you outside. So quicken the pace, I don’t want to misuse each and every second of the thirty minutes study break.”