Can We Really Score A 100% In English?

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CBSE 12th results were released yesterday, and the unachievable was finally achieved. 100% marks is not a utopian concept anymore. It is a reality in front of our eyes made true by two dedicated youths of our country – Divyanshi Jain and Tushar Singh.

While these students bask in the glory of cent percent marks, a thought arose in my mind. Something that must have popped up in the minds of countless others like me- How did they score 100% in English?

One of the toppers stated thus and I quote, “I don’t think one should get full marks in English because no letter or essay can be perfect”.

Today, I dare to ask, why not? If all that I wanted to state through my essay is ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ and I defended every single aspect of my views with perfectly articulated arguments, is my essay not perfect? Had I written a letter in real life instead of my answer script would my future employer have declined my job because I missed the EXACT points he or she intended me to make.

The irony is in the fact that I could write a long essay in subjects like history or political science using English as the medium of communication and score a 100 but not when I write similar content in my English exam itself.

In Malayalam there is a saying ‘Rogi Ichichatum Vaidyan Kalpichathum Paal’. In this context what it means is that, what the evaluator intended to find in an answer script and what these students wrote were in perfect synchrony. And that is what we call effective communication, the very reason for which languages were created.

Language is the most fundamental building block of all human communication. If this basic tool of all human understanding is unconquerable, I don’t know what else can be.

And if these students and the countless others who may have scored a 100 in their English exams this year actually did so, I am not surprised. Because there is no reason to be!

Now that we see that languages are in fact conquerable, I want to place a paradox that stood firm in front of me when I was thinking about all this.

In our country, we can score 100% marks in Hindi and other regional languages taught in schools across India and no one will be surprised. But not in English; at least, not until yesterday!

By the basic understanding of the linguistics involved in English versus our regional languages, one will not disagree that the latter are more intricate and rather difficult to comprehend.

How then did this messed up perception solidify in our minds that regional languages are conquerable, but not the language of our erstwhile oppressors- The British Empire!

There is a reason why I defined English as the language of our former oppressors. Precisely to signify the mere depth of the impact colonialism left on our country, down to the simplest understanding of how we perceive superiority in languages.

It is shameful that even now a 10th pass individual fluent in English is considered more educated than someone with a PhD in a regional language and knowledge only in that.

So if today an Indian youth did score 100 in English, all I want to say is that now is the time to shatter our perception of the superiority of a language that was historically introduced in our country to make us believe in the ‘inferiority’ of our languages and cultures.

And when we start to see English as just a language like every other, a mere tool for human communication, we will realize that scoring a 100 in English or rather any exam is in fact achievable and possible. What does this perfect achievement say about the validity of our education system in keeping the students on their toes at all times is a debate for another day!



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