In the sixth semester we were taught mathematical statistics by Sergey Anatolievich Guz. On the exam he seated you on the first row, gave you one random question of thirty and a clean sheet, and on the expiry of seven minutes took them back. And stood sternly pending above you. So either you were perfect or had to come again and again. In the evening before the exam it was clear, that even ten ideal answers were beyond my time resources.
My classmates were taught probability theory by Guz earlier, so I asked Alexey Malistov for advice. He heard me out and told:
— Learn maximum likelihood estimation.
In the morning I was given MLE and the excellent mark.