Nyaba,

As our brothers and sisters write their exams, through you I want to draw their attention to the kind of people they are likely to meet in the exam hall.

THE GIRAFFES

Those people who go for neck elongation exercises before the exams commence. They automatically become wind vanes inside the hall because they possess the professional ability to turn their necks to the four cardinal directions – East, West, North and South. These type of people need not talk to you or beg for answers. With the help of their keen eagle eyes, they hang on to whichever direction they could get the desired results – answers of course. And before you know it, they’re done.

THE PARASITES

These are the empty-headed dependents. They are bent on sucking out the whole answers from people who have suffered to study and never making any form of contribution. At the end of the day, they may end up scoring higher than the people who supplied the answers.

THE FIRST FINISHERS

The funny thing about these people is that most times, they are not the intelligent ones. Sometimes, you’d be wondering where they got the answers from. The main focus of such students is just to finish before everyone else, hoping they’ll be tagged brilliant.

THE GENUISES

They are well prepared and before the examiner is done with distributing the question papers and answer scripts, they’ve gone halfway in answering the questions to the amazement of those sitting around them. They are the blazers whose pen would continue to move at an incredibly fast speed from the beginning to the end of the exam. They leave people’s jaws dropping when they demand extra sheets for an exam that may not cover half of the provided answer scripts of other students.

THE WICKED ONES

These set of people will never be willing to give out a little of what is in their brain, they are always looking for ways to add to theirs. They are the ones that will not mind being called childish because they’ll prefer to fold their answer scripts ten times to make sure you never have a glimpse of what they are writing.

THE SCAPEGOATS

These are poor fellows that will forever be caught for one malpractice or another. If they didn’t come into the hall with forbidden materials, they’ll exhibit an unwanted behaviour.

THE CONFUSED FELLOWS

I think this set of people are one of the most sympathetic in the exam hall. Their confusion starts immediately they get the question papers. I don’t know if you’ve noticed? They are those ones who’ll start with borrowing pen. He’ll turn in your direction and say: “Charlie, abeg, u get extra pen?” After that, they’ll start flipping through their answer scripts as if they’re searching for something. They attempt almost all the questions but never complete any. Even when the atmosphere is conducive enough, these guys cannot get answers from any possible source. And whenever they remember what to write, they’ll turn to you to spell every word for them. The story is told of one such guy who asked for the spelling of "WATER" after it was spelled for him, he again asked for the spelling of the "W" in "water".

THE FATHERS OF FAITH

They fold their arms, and at the end submit a blank script, strongly believing that God will do a miracle for them. "Smh"

THE HOPEFUL PEN CHEWERS

The pen chewers are the same type of people that will be able to give you the detailed features of the exam hall, especially the ceiling. They are the never-do-wells who do not know and have no clue of how they could come up with something to write. They only write down the questions, carefully leaving an estimated space for answers after each NUMBER. The answers never come.

PHOTOCOPIERS

They are the most dangerous set of people you meet in the exam hall because their fingers and pens make up a sound photocopy machine. They have some other peripheral facilitators – keen eyes and long necks. Without your notice, they are capable of copying everything you’ve written, word for word. The intelligent ones among them are so efficient in the business that they’ll end up getting you implicated: the examiner would conclude you are the one that copied from them. But for the unintelligent ones, they’ll just expose their foolishness because they copy senselessly and without reservations – they write everything, including your name.

THE HYSTERICAL BEGGARS

These ones will be begging for answers as though they are the most unfortunate person in that exam hall. They could go to the extent of bursting into sobs, right there in the examination hall. All the drama is just in a bid to be supplied with answers, no more, no less.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR WRITERS

These ones will behave as if everything is all right and fine as desired. But wait till the examiner says, ‘ten minutes more’, then the hitherto calm expression on their faces turns to look like someone who just got news of the death of a relative.

Nyaba, our brothers and sisters must be aware of such characters in the exam hall.