Dear Aspirant,

Physics, or any other field for that matter does not depend on the exams. The exams are just for the outer world to have a check on your skills, the real interest stems from doing things on your own, without any interest in the marks or rewards. Real physicists, or mathematicians, or coders do their stuff because they want to do it, they found their work interesting and challenging and therefore keep them moving. Same is true for any other profession be it writer, biologists, etc.

However you might not see the beauty in certain things on your own and need a good teacher for that. Sometimes not so good teachers make otherwise interesting things non interesting.

Hope this helps. Thank you.