Narrate an incident from your own experience when you expected to do very well, but for some reason were unable to do so. Explain what happened and why it happened. What lesson did you learn from it?

Never keep your assignments or pending work till the last minute. This is the lesson I have learnt from my own bitter experience. I was a happy-go-lucky person before even though I was the topper of my class till VIII class. But my over-confidence and keeping things pending till the last minute landed me to the III rank in IX class. It happened when my cousin was getting married on 3rd March last year and our final exams were starting from 5th March, just one day after the wedding. Since this was a family wedding, we all had to go to Mumbai. We were supposed to return on 4th March evening 7:00 p.m. But due to some technical problem with the train, our train was late by five hours. So, we were able to reach home at midnight around 12:30. After finishing my dinner at around 2:00 a.m. at night, I washed my face and went to study and revise Maths paper 1, next morning. Even though I had finished my Maths revision before the wedding, but I kept the last lessons pending to revise at the last moment. I thought they were easy lessons which I could finish within few minutes because of my over-confidence. Since I was tired and exhausted after doing few sums, I went to sleep on the table the whole night. I was woken up by my father around 6:30 a.m. who came and shook me while calling my name. My father shouted and said that it was 6:30 a.m. and that if I did not wake up, I would miss my first paper, your first paper will be missed, if you don’t wake up…

When I saw the clock I started crying and screaming, that I didn’t study even for half an hour last night. I will not appear for this exam and I started persuading my parents, but they didn’t listen. My father dropped me at school at the last minute. Now I was stuck in blue. I had to appear for the exam without any option. When I saw the question paper in front of me at first I was very happy because I had studied most of it. I was satisfied with 80 marks questions but luck didn’t favour me fully that day. In the 3 chapters which I kept pending, about 20 marks questions came from that part. I was in tears, thinking about what to do? Then my inner voice told me to forget the 20 marks part and do the 80 marks part properly and carefully, for which I did my best. During my free time, I started guessing and solving 20 marks part. When I came out of class after finishing my paper, I tallied the answers. My 80 marks were correct and sure. But in the 20 marks part, 2 of my answers were also correct. When my result came I was astonished as I got 85/100 in Maths, which was satisfactory enough. But I missed my 100/100 in Maths and my rank went from first to third in class. This was the biggest incident in my life which made me realize that I could have done very well if I had studied those 3 chapters of Maths well in advance, but I was unable to do so because of that reason. But now I am more sincere in my studies, Thank God for that.