To Copy Or Not To Copy

Psst.

I heard someone hiss at another student, and then ask in a fast whisper "Question 3 ka answer kya hai?"

I didn't recognize the voice – we had BA and BSc students along with our BMM batch. I couldn't look around either – naturally, it was an exam hall. Our nameless, faceless answer-seeker got his answer in an equally hurried whisper – "Dec 3, 1947!"

An average day in an average exam hall. Except that I didn't know the answer to question 3 either. I debated using the information that I had intercepted. To copy or not to copy....

As a rule, I try not to copy during exams. Having your mother as a teacher in the same school as you study sorta contributed (#awkward = having your Mum teach your class). This time though, I hadn't peeped into anyone's paper, nor had I asked anyone the answer. Most of my paper was over, and I found myself with 15 minutes to spend on a 1 mark question. Plenty of time to ponder the merits and demerits of copying...

One the one hand, was the basic immorality of copying. From childhood, we've been taught that it's wrong to copy. It was unfair to all those who had taken the effort to study all those dates. Moreover, I wondered how students found the daring to copy when they risked losing a year if found out.

Then again what was the point of studying so many dates? It adds to our knowledge, but isn't understanding history more important than remembering it? Wasn't our education unfairly advantageous to those who can memorize, rather than create meaning? Especially in a world where so much information is at our fingertips, where any date is available at the touch of a button...

In the end, I didn't copy. In the end, it also turned out that Dec 3, 1947 was a completely wrong answer.

So much for that.