Topic: Exam Nightmares

[karmesinrot]

Hey guys, I'm currently in the process of an all night cramming session for my Biochemistry exam at 9.30 in the morning. It's currently a quarter past 11 and I plan to be studying for at least the next 4 hours.  Anyone care to share their exam horror stories to cheer me up?

[Critter]

Hmm I finished High School last year, which mean't all of last year I spent in one big bubble of stress. Exams were NOT my high point. I had a certain skill to always to great in the class work and homework, but then shit in exams. I was the type to crack under pressure and an exam room is not my natural habitat. In the end though I didn't care, I decided to stop stresssing and relax instead, it didn't matter if I failed most of my exams anyway. The course I wanted to get into was based on folio work and an interview and not marks, so I got it anyway.

By the way Rhona, since reading that Dr Who thing I've been curious to ask, which TV shows do you like?

[Kathy]

I never crammed for an exam - at this point you are not going to learn and retain enough to make a difference.

Get a good night sleep. Eat a high fiber nutritious breakfast. Read the questions slowly and completely. You know more than you think you do. Trust your instinct. Don't spend too much time on any one question. And, finally, don't change your answers.

Good luck!

Edit: One other thing to remember for the future. If you spend 10 or 15 minutes after the class reviewing what you learned you will retain more of the information than hours of later study.

I forgot who passed on these pearls of wisdom but I took them to heart. I worked hard but I also made time to have fun. I know they work because I graduated in the top 1% in college. I even made it on the "Who's Who" in America list!

[DJ Doena]

I've always been minimum effort guy. My luck was that I was generally good at school. If I had really applied myself I could have done way better but since I wasn't motivated AND was in no danger to actually fail I just floated in the upper middle section of the grade spectrum.

The only times I really had to study were for my Abitur exams (four major exams at the german equivalent to high school) and what you'd call "Math 101" at the college. That math seminar was a sieve to weed out everyone who wouldn't have a chance anyway - and in that it succeeded. Every topic I had ever heard of (and quite a few topics I hadn't heard of) in my previous 13 years of school were pressed into one huge exam. "You haven't heard of a Fourier transform? Then better read up on it...". I've never studied so hard for anything else ever agin.

[MEJHarrison]

I've always been minimum effort guy. My luck was that I was generally good at school. If I had really applied myself I could have done way better but since I wasn't motivated AND was in no danger to actually fail I just floated in the upper middle section of the grade spectrum.

Sounds pretty much like me.  I didn't study in high school and pretty much floated through with A's & B's.  Mostly A's.  One semester just for kicks I decided to see what would happen if I applied myself.  Got all A's.  But it wasn't worth the effort.  So I went back to not studying.

Unfortunately, things changed a little in college.  My habit of not studying carried through there as well.  Fortunately I was up to the task and things didn't go too far down hill.  Skated though with B's & C's.  But in my computer science classes (my major), I still got all A's all 4 years without putting in anything more into it than the required effort.

The way I looked at college was I needed to spend a ton of money and time to get a little slip of paper that would get my foot in the door for my first job.  After that it's useless.  After that first job, no one cares where you went to school or how you did.  A professor once told me college really isn't about learning things.  It's more about learning how to learn.  Kind of a twist on the old "teach a man to fish" thing.

As for cramming, I agree with Kathy.  Those late night sessions did nothing more than make me tired the next day.

And if Brittany is reading this (or anyone else still in school / college), don't do what I did or horrible things will happen to you. Study, study, study.

[Jimmy]

I never crammed for an exam - at this point you are not going to learn and retain enough to make a difference.

I did that for almost all my time at the university. I had to deal with the school, my full time job, my radio show on the university station, my implication in my departement (I was at different time President, secretary and treasurer for the politics departement) and of course my social life (). So I have pass many white nights studying but I was lucky since I was good at school. The worst I've done is to write a 20 pages mid-term report in a class of 20th century Middle East history () in 2 days because I forgot completly to about it.

[karmesinrot]

Kathy that's amazing! You must have been a really dedicated student. May I ask what you do now as a career?
 I have never ever been a good studier, it's not something that's really concentrated on in schools around here, plus I'm a huuuuuge procrastinator. I managed to somehow get 6 As for my Higher exams in 2007, but now I'm finishing up my 2nd year at uni on a B/C average. It's unfortunate that 4 of my 6 exams are within the space of 10 days.

As for TV, I think my top 5 shows are: Scrubs, Sex and the City, Grey's Anatomy, Gilmore Girls and Friday Night Lights. I also like things such as Desperate Housewives, Dexter, Friends, Castle, 90210, Buffy, Gossip Girl, Will and Grace - just a general mix of  comedy, trash and drama. I much prefer American/Canadian productions to British ones when it comes to TV. The only British TV shows I have on DVD are Gavin and Stacey and Jonathan Creek 

[Achim]

I always put the related book under my pillow on the night before the exam

[snowcat]

Not a big fan of exams, Thankfully my course is purely practical ;p no exams for me!

Im also in the final stages of my course and looking at getting a university scholarship ... (I took a couple of gap years partly because I had a rough few years whilst studying for my A Levels and partly because I wanted to go in a different academic direction)


Good luck with you exams! I find the revision cards were the best way for me to learn

[Kathy]

May I ask what you do now as a career?

I was a waitress for many years and then, at aged 31, I went back to school to become a nurse.

There are various levels of nursing and I went through them all. I started with a 1 year program to become a LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) to make sure that this vocation was what I wanted to do. This program was where I learned how to be a student. The best thing I did was utilize the section designed to help students. I also found some study buddies which helped the learning process.

I have since completed my RN (Registered Nurse) completing my bachelors and masters. I have been a critical care nurse for over 20 years. I have always done hospital based nursing but that may change.

I had a severe injury a few months ago, I ruptured my left calf muscle, and have decided that I want to do something different. I have been offered a position in Hospice and will likely accept it after the summer.

[Najemikon]

I've always tended to be fairly academic, a natural student and actually would enjoy studying something if I could apply myself, but I struggled through school for various reasons and got to the point of simply not caring, so left with no exam results worth mentioning. I went to college and really enjoyed it, but the damage was done and I'd developed a weird ability to self-sabotage and it was impossible to concentrate, so that wasn't the result it should have been either. Later I went back to college, sponsored through work, and did well, but I was definitely better at coursework. Never got nervous or flustered about exams, but always seemed to do them wrong! My only absolute runaway success was in Film Studies that I did for fun.

My only tip would be to read the exam paper first, then scan through it again, before answering. I used to fall into the trap of answering three part questions all in the first part! So I'd got the question right, but still got marked down because it didn't write it down properly.

[Kathy]

That reminds me - the teacher always told us to read the directions before starting the exam. One time the directions said that, since I was reading the directions, all I had to do was sign the back of the paper and hand it it! I'll never forget the faces of everyone else as I signed the paper and took it to the front of the class to hand it. I was the only one to read the directions!

[Najemikon]

 

And in turn, that reminds me of a favourite story. A teacher of philosophy set his students a task. He placed a chair on the desk at the front and asked the class to write an essay proving the chair did not exist.

Most wrote very complicated and long-winded theories around existentialism, but the only student to get an "A" finished rather quicker than the others. His essay simply read:

(click to show/hide)

"What chair?"   

[Dragonfire]

I hope the exams go well for you.  I don't like tests...I usually do ok on them, but I don't like them.

[MEJHarrison]

Once in college I had a test.  Knew the material inside and out.  Finished first which was no real surprise.  Got the test back the next week and discovered that while I had totally nailed all the questions, I didn't realize there were more printed on the back of the paper.

I don't recall my grade, but it was one of my computer classes, so I obviously made up the differences elsewhere since I know I got an A for the class overall.