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Never give up. There are times when even making an effort seems a fool's errand, but to hope when all hope is lost is sometimes the reward itself. In one of my physics classes in college, we took a weekly, five problem, multiple choice exam - no partial credit. So if you missed one problem, the best you can do is get an 80%. If you missed two, you got a "D" or 60%. The only saving grace was that you were allowed to drop one exam (your lowest I'm assuming... well, unless you're really cocky, I suppose) from your final grade. But since you had a "drop," the professor made it clear that there would be no makeup exams.

In my usual, disciplined promptness, I put off studying for one exam until 1AM the "night before," and my class was at 8AM. I studied through the night and watched the sun rise over the study lounge in my dorm...

"I'll just put my head down for a second," I thought to myself.

You know that feeling when you wake up one very important morning, not to the sound of an alarm clock, but just silence? And you are petrified of what time you are going to see when you finally look over at the aforementioned silent alarm clock? Yeah... imagine that except no clock or watch... because I was in the study lounge. So I sped out to the hallway and ran over to the nearest person and, breathless, like Scrooge in the final scene of "A Christmas Carol" where he needs to find out if Christmas has passed yet - except not so joyful, I asked what time it was.

"Why, it's 8:30, Mr. Scrooge... I mean, Nate... why?"

I actually don't know exactly what he said after "8:30..." because I immediately ran back to the study lounge, grabbed my calculator and a #2 pencil and sprinted out of the dorm... in my flip-flops and what I normally wear to sleep. For a moment I thought that I could just use this as my "drop" exam until I remembered the 40 I got just a few weeks prior.

My class was about a mile away. At 1/4 mile, one of my flip-flops disintegrated so I was now sprinting with only one flip-flop, in my sleep clothes, on an hour of sleep. A friend of mine saw me and asked where I was running to. I yelled back, "to my 8 o'clock exam!" I'll never forget the look on her face as she looked up from her watch as I thought I heard her yell, "RUN, FORREST, RUN!"

Well, I made it to my class at around 8:40 (hey, you try sprinting in flip-flops, excuse me... flip-flop). I quickly made my way to the front of the lecture hall and, trying not to barf a lung, I told the T.A. that I needed a copy of the exam. My back was to the 150 or so students that were there, but I could distinctly hear the entire room, in unison, raise and shake their heads at the poor sap up front before returning to the exam.

I sat down with my answer sheet and exam and actually nailed the first problem (hey, what do you know... studying works!), but halfway through the second problem I knew there was no way I was going to be able to finish it in time. So I made my best guess on problem two, and as the T.A. was telling us to stop, I randomly wrote 'B', 'D', and 'C' for the last three answers.

"Hey, at least I didn't get a zero," I thought to myself as I collapsed on the steps outside the lecture hall.

The following week, when they posted the scores to the exams... can you guess what I got? Yes, that's right! 100%!

Never give up.

Learn more about this author, Nathan Kim.
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