The Essay Whisperer says: Exams exemplify an existential experience. When you sit down in front of the closed exam paper, you experience the complete freedom of no longer being able to learn another thing. Then, following this blissful moment, when you open the paper, there is the less-enjoyable experience of sheer vertigo and angst when you realise that you are far less prepared than you had originally thought (most likely because of too much existential freedom!).