Why Wayne Topped the Boards and I Didn't

I had a classmate in high school named Romeo. He was good in math, so good that we went to him when we found a math problem hard to solve. My father's name is also Romeo and he was awarded "Best in Math" in his elementary years. Are you seeing a pattern here? If you didn't, well, my 14 year-old self did and swore back then that she's going to name her son Romeo because she wanted him to be a math whiz.

If you're thinking of letting your sons and daughters take up Chemical Engineering in the future, name them Wayne, or something that sounds like it for girls, because he topped the boards ladies and gentlemen. Everybody seems to think that he did because he is Wayne Tandingan. I'm not going to lie, I did too. But as time went by, I revisited the whole experience and found three interesting and totally doable things which I think may have contributed to his success. You may want to hold that thought of naming your kids Wayne or Romeo for a while.

This post is a comparison between Wayne's board exam preparation and mine. A bit of disclaimer before we continue, I'm not saying that if you followed everything that he did, you'd end up topping the board exams too. I'm also not saying that everything that I did was wrong, because I passed the exam myself. I'm simply making an attempt to explain why he got the top spot from my perspective. So, if you're still up to read the rest of the post, please, do so.

I think the most important thing that Wayne did that I overlooked was what I like to call 'laying a foundation'. The foundation is built on the reason why you wanted to take the exam in the first place. His was strong and solid. He wanted to get a grade that he deserves in the exam. He graduated later than the rest of us in the batch because of things that were beyond his control and to say the least, it left off a desire to make things right for the next chapter of his life. I say that this reason was strong because it was rooted in something that he firmly believed in. He knew that he had to get what he deserved. I had a reason myself, but I realize later on that it was only to feed my ego. Needless to say, I had a shaky foundation that was reflected in the efforts that I exerted in my preparation - inconsistent and with wavering focus. 

I remember an instance when Wayne and I decided to have a mock exam for a fixed set of hours. He answered items off at his best speed while I spent my time being bothered at how fast he was able to answer the items that I hadn't even understood yet. Back then, I was consumed with being frustrated with myself because I can only hope to be as fast as him. Because my reason was to feed my ego, my mind couldn't accept that there was someone better than me right before my very eyes. I stopped answering midway through the exam while he only had a few items left unanswered. I thought to myself, "It was a mistake to have done this test with him. Why is Wayne showing off anyway? He is such a show off."

If I had taken a step back from the negative thinking that I clearly was more invested in, I could've realized back then that there was something wrong with my foundation. It was wrong because it wasn't rooted in something that was true. There he was right there - the person who could potentially have a greater score than myself. My brain couldn't make sense of the disconnect between what I told myself on the inside and what is actually happening on the outside. You can fool yourself for a while, but reality will hit you sooner or later.

Wayne's foundation enabled him to develop an unwavering focus come exam time. When he decides to answer an exam set, he will do just that. To be clear, I'm not saying that having a solid foundation will secure your spot in the top ten. I'm saying that the lack of such will reflect in whatever you decide to do in your preparation and on the exam itself.

He also has this practice of what he fondly refers to as 'throwing issues at the door'. This means that whatever motivations and worries that you have, when it's time to take the test, you have to forget about all of them and turn your attention to the task at hand. In the exam's case, answering the questions. He takes things as they are and what that means is when he sees a difficult problem, he says "this is difficult" and not "I can't even get this question right. I'm going to fail." You may have guessed by now to whom that last thought belongs to and if that's how you think as well, I suggest that you take a breather because it indicates that you are tired and that you need to rest, even for a little while.

Wayne tells me that he processed all of the pressure the night before we were to take the first exam. Of topping, of maintaining the 100% passing rate, of disappointing his parents and teachers - he used them to exhaust himself to sleep. He woke up that morning and threw them at the door and started to focus on taking the test. He had a clear goal in mind - to answer all of the questions carefully. It doesn't matter if he got them wrong or right, as long as he knew that careful attention was given to each one. By doing so, he can attribute his wrong answers to clumsiness and his right answers to his being careful. He answered the easy questions first to give him more time to do the difficult ones later. 

It's easy to get stuck and not get to where you want to go when you bring baggage with you. I've always had this "this is difficult so I'm never going to get this" filter and this became clearer to me as I answered a steady-state heat transfer by conduction problem with a clear head. To my surprise, I found it easy. 

I know that this cycle of thinking negatively is hard to control when you have a lot of things going on in your head and that's why I think this is where the idea that Wayne taught me comes in handy "There is a perfect time for everything and that includes setting up time for rest." He always dedicates time for rest and even has his own reward system. After an exam or an intense study session, he either treats himself to a meal, play games to his heart's content or sleep for as long as he wants.

He even scolded me for not sleeping the night before the second day of the exam. The nerves got to me and I thought that I haven't done enough yet. I strained myself and I think it affected my performance. I couldn't say up to what extent it did, but I can tell you that I almost dozed off halfway through the exam. Thankfully, I still had some control over myself to allow for a few seconds of shut-eye before I went on with answering. 

These three tips or whatnot as you may have noticed are things that you can easily tweak if you've started preparing for the exams already. These did not take into account Wayne's educational background and his pre-existing skills which also contributed a great deal to his success. But I'd like to think that what sets him apart from people with similar experiences as him is his high-degree of self-awareness. Because he knew himself better than anybody else, he worked with his strengths and weaknesses to get his goal. Acceptance of what you can and can't do, in my own opinion, gives you a sense of security. A security that whatever may happen, you can always be at peace with yourself. I read in Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" that "socially impressive" achievements are more a natural and effortless expression of the feelings one has about one's self rather than merely a response to social reward.

I wish you well in your coming exams and please do tell me if you want to hear more tips. My friend Joan, also wrote on her blog about her board exam experience, you can read that here. You can also read more into Wayne's board exam journey here and here.

A place in the top ten remains to be just a dream for me, but I learned a lot from the experience and I can say that it made me grow both intellectually and personally. Best of luck to all of you!