Final Exams - It's In The Game!

Last night was my first final exam of the summer - Payment Systems. As with all final exams, I try to be as prepared as possible with the short amount of study time that I have. This exam was going to be particularly difficult because it was a "code" exam. That is, it was based on Articles 3 and 4 of the Uniform Commercial Code.

In my other "code" classes (Wills & Trusts, Tax, Corporations, Agency & Partnerships), we were allowed to bring the code into the exam because of the amount of information. Having the code is marginally beneficial - it lets us glance at the requirements of a given section and then discuss those elements as they relate to the fact pattern. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring the code to this exam.

So I wasn't surprised to show up to the exam and have people freaking out. I wasn't freaking out because I was tired of thinking about it (not a good place to be before the exam). I had read ALL of Article 3, ALL of Article 4, the official UCC comments, and the commentary that my professor wrote for each section. I did what I could do to prepare.

There was one person (other than me) that wasn't freaking out. He was...less than prepared. He wasn't concerned about the grade he was going to get. He hadn't read any of the chapters in our book (which basically just cite the UCC). He hadn't read any of the UCC sections. His study time consisted of spending 30 minutes before the exam reading an outline someone prepared 4 years ago.

So what was he doing the past few days since class ended?

NCAA Football 2010. Yep, he was playing video games. And he gave the new game a glowing review. He was especially excited that the University of Houston was good in the game. He played the game enough the night before to get UH to the national championship game. He explained to me that his first game was against the Aggies and that he whooped up on them.

I found this very amusing. He was super excited about the game. And he did a great job of comforting everyone else. Not only did people forget that they were about to take an exam, but they came to realize 2 things about the exam itself. First, the curve was going to be good (thanks to this guy). Second, there was at least one person that they were going to do better than.

Thanks EA Sports!