If I were to generalize, failures are explained by 6 factors:
- I don’t have an end
- I don’t have means to the end
- I am not sincere towards the end
- I am not sincere towards the means
- I don’t pursue or persevere
- Error factor
Every single failure, whether in exams or in life, may be explained by factor 1 to 5 above, and where none of the 5 factors apply, factor 6 is like the omnibus that covers all cases not covered by 1-5.
Lack of objective
Most failures are caused by lack of end, lack of objective. People don’t know what they want. Like the famous line from Alice in Wonderland that says – if you don’t know where you are going, then any road will take you there, those who don’t know what they want are never able to get what they want. Most people who fail are unclear about their objective, or their objective in hand, and fail to put priorities in proper sequence. For instance, we have a short term objective, and a long term objective. What is more important? Many would favour long term. They would say, today’s pain is tolerable, if tomorrow is a gain. Ultimately, it is long term that matters; hence, short term objectives should give way to long term. On the other hand, in the fast pace of life of our present day, many are not even concerned about the long term. Today gain, even if tomorrow is a pain, seems to be the motive.
In fact, choosing between long-term and short-term is not a case of either/or options. We cannot disregard short-term while caring for the long-term objectives. Of what avail is tomorrow’s gain, if today, day after day, continues to be a pain? In fact, what we need is to balance out between short term and long term objectives, and if at all there is a conflict, short-term needs may have to override long-term concerns.
For instance, in my original article, I preached about studying for knowledge and not for the exams. Here too, one may say, knowledge is the long-term objective, exam is the short-term objective. There is no conflict between the two, as if you are studying for knowledge, that would take care of your exams too. But imagine something like this – for whatever reason I have not studied round the year, and I woke up a month before the exams. With only a month left, if I take Vinod Kothari suggestion, and start studying for knowledge, I am sure to be a failure. Because, here there is a conflict between short-term and long-term objective. With the amount of time left, my studies cannot be intensive – they have to be extensive. So even if I cannot see the full picture of the subject clearly, I need to see patches, so as to get a foothold in the exams. Hence, in choosing between knowledge-orientation and exam-orientation, you need to make a rational and balanced choice.
Our friend who scored distinction in Class XII but started flunking consistently thereafter probably suffers from some lack of priority, some misdirection. It may be a case of distractions eating up a lot of his time, or wrong prioritization. To take an example, I have quite often seen students putting hours and hours of effort in betterment of a certain subject (A) where marks range between 50% to 65%, at the cost of a subject (B) where marks range between 50% to 80%. As you have limited time before your exams, you need to ration out your time. Most intuitive principle of rationing demands that you allocate resources where utilities are the maximum, or the cost-benefit ratio is the maximum. 10 hours of time put into subject A may better your marks from 50 to 55, but those very 10 hours in subject B may uplift you from 50 to 70.
Allocation of time is an example of proper prioritization, which, by itself, has many dimensions. Our friend with a bit of reflection may himself find out if his brilliance, energy, is getting lost somewhere.
Lack of means:
The second factor is quite obvious and does not need much elaboration. I know where I want to go, but I don’t have the transportation to take me there, obviously I will never be able to reach. Every task needs proper resources: if we don’t have bullocks to till the farm, we can’t do it with mere objective or determination.
The first querist above who said she spent 15 hours to study every day, took all 3 groups twice, and failed, may be taking too much of a bite for her mouth. I am obviously not sure, but that may be the reason. 15 hours a day is probably the upper limit of how much one can study: she could not have studied more. I don’t think any student studies for longer hours. If there was no other reason, I would have suggested taking fewer groups together. Incidentally, I must make another important point. She should not drop out the third group – she should prepare for two, but anyway appear in the exam for the third one also. You never know you may be lucky. Even if you don’t get through the group that you did not prepare, at least you took a practice examination. In fact, I have suggested this to many students, and guess what, quite often people have passed out though they never prepared for the group that they were not serious with. (I can also write a secret article on the art of constructive bluffing!)
Error factor
Factor 3 and 4, respectively, are extensions of factor 1 and 2 respectively. Hence, I would not elaborate on these. Factor 5 is lack of perseverance, hard work, etc. This is again so well known, so well stress, that it would be superfluous, at least in this article, to write on factor 5.
Hence, I spend some space on Factor 6. People call it by different names. Most people call it the “luck factor”. As I am a non-believer in luck, I just call it the error factor. In general, efforts lead to results or success. Unless factor 1 to 5 apply, every effort must, therefore, lead to success and there should not be any case of failure at all. However, in human behavior, there is no mathematical equation that equates effort with success. On the contrary, effort and results are a mathematical “inequality”. Since E for Effort ¹ S for success, we put an error factor (e) to complete the equation. That is,
E = S + e, where e may be any positive or negative number
That is to say, S is a function of E, but then sometimes, S is more than E, and sometimes it is less. This is just a case of inequality, a random error term. Like all mathematical error terms, the error may be either positive, or negative, and it is purely random. People bring in “luck” or “stars” to explain the error, but in my view, no one can either consistently be lucky, or consistently unlucky. The only question is, did we get into despair because last time, our success was not consistent with the effort? Quite often we do - hence, that despair detaches us from the objective (factor 3 or 4 comes in), and therefore, we repeat our failure.
In sum I would say, proper prioritization is required everywhere in life, and particularly so for students who have defined time limits for achieving things.
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