Few things in our lives are as scary as exams – especially board exams are. For most of us, it’s the first time we tackle that thing called a public examination. Just the thought of going into a totally different school and attempting an exam set by a completely unknown person is a little unsettling. Add to that the fact that your results are out there for everyone to see and judge you by, and you have the ultimate real life horror story in your hands.

If you’ve ever given a board exam, you’ll know what it’s like to go through these things!

1. Wake up in the morning only to realise that today is all you have to prepare for this exam.

2. Feel overwhelmingly underprepared for no real reason.

3. Decide to calm yourself down with some top class procrastination.

4. Try to drown out all your parents well meaning last minute advice.

5. Start feeling rather relaxed while binge-watching your favourite shows.

6. Only to jump up with the realisation that you have eighteen hours remaining.

7. Make a complicated hours v/s chapters timetable that you swear you will follow to the last detail.

8. Start day dreaming about the time when this torture will be over.

9. Rewrite the time table, because you have wasted another hour in all of this.

10. Give up on trying to manage your time and call up a friend to “group study”.

11. Secretly applaud yourself for being better prepared than your friend.

12. Find out from your friend that the portion you thought was out of syllabus is actually the most important portion.

13. Watch as your life flashes by in front of your eyes.

14. Get down to actually studying for the exam.

15. Flip through the pages of your book and pray that you develop photographic memory.

16. Promise yourself that you’ll never leave things for the last minute again.

17. Go through all the sample papers that you have attempted in the past one year.

18. Realise that you can’t answer a single one of the important questions for some reason.

19. Hyperventilate, pray to your gods and cry a little.

20. Call up your tuition teacher, because she/he has all the answers.

21. Try to get a grip on yourself by screaming/tearing your hair out.

22. Curse all your cousins because you know you can never do better than them.

23. Really, really hope that you actually can.

24. Stare blankly at a wall trying to figure out whether you’re going blind, or have just been reading too much.

25. Count the number of pages in the remaining chapters.

26. Seriously contemplate cheating in the exam.

27. Take a last look at the internet, in case someone has leaked the question paper online.

28. Beat yourself up for the number of hours you’ve wasted since morning.

29. Pack your bags and make sure that all the ten pens in your pencil box work.

30. Try to force yourself into dreaming up the question paper.

While it’s happening, it seems like the worst thing ever. But soon, you realise that it’s not really all that big a deal. Just take a deep breath! It’ll all turn out for the better in the end.