Final Exam and First Week Back

My last exam went just like the first two. I walked out feeling confident that I had put everything that need to be mentioned in the essays and I wrote for 45 minutes straight for each one. So, I had three exams where I think I passed with firsts and one where I'll be happy if I passed. 

My first week back made this semester look much better than last semester. The reason I believe I didn't do well in my Methods exam was because the lecturer really didn't lecture. Now, I grew up with two University lecturers/professors. I learned from a really, really young age that teachers don't hand out grades, the students earn them. So, I never blame the teacher for a grade (I do expect them to tell me how I can do better in the future though). I don't believe that it's the job of the lecturer to teach us I believe that it's their job to give us the tools to learn. To give us the foundation to build upon. This lecturer didn't give us the foundation...he barely gave us the nails. Plus, have I mentioned that I don't like multiple choice? Especially since I don't believe that we were taught in a way that would allow us to do well in multiple choice. Anyway, this is a long winded way to say that the Methods lecture on Monday was much better than last semester. 

I'm also pretty excited about this semester's practical. I'm in the practical group for colour vision! It's one of my favourite subjects. While it's really thick and researching it is pretty hard, it's still pretty cool. Should be fun.

Third Exam

Oh, my third exam did not go well today at all. I studied for it for about two hours a day for five days. That's ten hours. Plus about 8 hours of lecture in class and another 4 hours of lecture outside of class. Along with the 23 hours of SPSS tutorials. And yet, with all of that I sat down in the exam and everything must have just fluttered away from my little brain.

Half the time I was thinking, "What in the world does he want from me?" Along with the fact that I just don't do well in Multiple Choice Exams, the wording of the questions were really...wordy and thick. I just wanted to shout, "Ask me a straightforward question!" I went through all of the questions at the beginning of the lectures, you know those questions about what you were suppose to learn during the lecture, and answered all of them more in depth than the answers online. And yet, I am not confident. There were three...maybe four questions that I know I got correct...out of 60.

It happens every time I go in to do a multiple choice exam. I second guess myself instead of just jotting down my first impression. *sigh*

I don't want a good grade on this one. Not anymore. I just want to pass.

2 Down 2 To Go

As it turns out, my second exam was moved to today after I looked up the date, time, and place in the first week of January. I never thought to look again because I had it written down in two places. I'm just really, really thankfully that it didn't get moved to Tuesday at 9:00am since I would have missed it.

So far, I'm feeling pretty good. So good in fact that I am a little suspicious. You know when you think you've done really well, but then you get the final mark and feedback and it turns out you totally and completely misunderstood the question? That's the kind of feeling I'm having right now. On Monday when I flipped over the paper and looked through the choice of questions I had to answer...I knew them. And I walked out feeling like there wasn't anything else that I could have added into the essay. I put in what they said in lecture and even a few things that they didn't say in lecture and that I had read in background reading. And I felt the same today! I'm cautiously optimistic.

My next two exams are Thursday and Friday of next week. And oh am I having trouble studying for these. They were my two least favourite courses. I wish that they had stacked them differently so that at least one of my favourite courses would force me to study for the not so fun ones.

Well...I'm on a sort of streak and I don't want to ruin that. I suppose that could be my motivation.

First Exam of Third Year

Here we are. The morning of my first exam of the year and what am I doing? Sitting and playing a computer game. Well, I guess right now I'm writing this blog post (been a while huh?). My plan was to do some last minutes studying this morning before heading off to the exam hall for my exam that starts at noon...but I can't bring myself to do it. Last night between 5:30 and 6:00 I just thought, "I can't do this anymore." and put down my writing implements, put away journal articles, and closed the Blackboard webpage. I know I probably should have pushed through and done a few more hours of work, but I was just so...done. I will do a little before going in, but I'm not going to scramble around trying to cram a while bunch of facts into my brain. At this point, I know it or I don't.

My confidence level is abysmal. These exams are worth 75% of my grade for the course and I'm pretty sure that I have to get between 16 and 18 depending on the course to get the grades that I want this year. Fairly nerve wracking. Especially for someone who doesn't test well and who sometimes forgets things as soon as she reads them. Everyone keeps telling me that I'll be fine and I'm choosing to believe them, but I wish I could tell myself that everything will go smoothly.

I'm off to make sure I understand the different models of memory...maybe somewhere in there I'll discover why I don't remember so well.

4 exams:
January 14: Biological Psychology
January 15: Perception
January 24: Methods A (Statistics basically)
January 25: Psychological Assessment

De-Stressing

While I know I have been absent from the blogging world I think I have a good excuse. Both of my exams were last week so I decided to take a break from blogging for a week. I had a Sunday Dinner and a debate lined up for last week, but I thought that since my efforts would be in my revision that I wouldn't have time to cook or think of anything else. I was very right and wanted to post them up this week, but I'm just spending the week relaxing and totally forgot to post up the Sunday dinner on Sunday.

Since all of that happened, I think I'm going to hold off until this Sunday since I also don't think that I will have time to cook or bake again until next week.

I'm just relaxing and trying to de-stress at this point. It's...well, it's going. Not well, but I'm sure that the de-stressing will start soon. Hopefully my puppy friend that I have this week will help out a little.

Exam Results

My exam results are in and the consensus is...

I need to try harder this semester.

That's not saying that I did horribly. I did fairly well. I just didn't do well enough. That's the long and the short of it. So, this semester I'm going to be a busy bee. Done and done. I'm going to start revising for the exam way ahead of time and make little notes as I go along. The only thing that would make this all easier if there were only three sections to the Psychology course. Instead there are five. This means that four of the sections will only be running for six weeks and I can't justify spending money on a really big, really expensive Psychology book if I'm only using it for six weeks. Ah, well. At least they have them in the library.

I'm also going to try and think of ways to use this blog as a study space. It won't be anything boring (I hope). What I'm thinking about doing is this; after each Psychology lecture I'm going to write a post about what I learned and what the main points of the lecture were. I'll make it as fun and interesting and exciting as possible.

As for right now. I'm either going to read a few chapters in my borrowed library books or start planning for my essay that's due in next Friday.