On Campus

The worst type of exam

‘Long answer’ and ‘thought’ questions? I’m doomed.

When I woke up this morning, I realized to my horror that three weeks have somehow gone missing. Overnight.

Three of my midterms are scheduled for October 26, 27, and 28. At the end of September, before October had completely disappeared without any warning, they were all safely in the category of “meh, I’ll worry about these later.” I had almost a month to study and catch up with the readings. No problem.

Now it’s suddenly October 25 and my Molecular Biology midterm is tomorrow, and the next day I have a Developmental Biology midterm, and the day after that, a French midterm. And a Biochemistry lab report. And a quiz. And a French assignment.

This sense of impending doom kind of gives me a feeling of deja-vu. Except last semester it was an organic chemistry exam.

The semester before that, it was a microbiology exam.

And the semester before that, it was a physics exam.

In the end, all three of them weren’t nearly as bad as I expected. The problem is, there are two crucial differences between those exams and my upcoming midterms:

1) I’ve already used up all my brownie points with the Exam Gods.

Last semester, three days before my Organic Chemistry final, I prayed to the Exam Gods to forgive my procrastinating ways and let me pass. I swore that for the rest of my life I would diligently study every single night. I even offered my younger brother as a sacrifice, if they would just show me some mercy and let me pass.

2) All of those other exams were multiple choice.

Whenever I was confronted with a question that was beyond the scope of my last-minute cramming, I could use the process of elimination or the process of closing my eyes and choosing whichever option my pencil lands on.

Both of the upcoming biology midterms, on the other hand, are made up of “long answer” and “thought” questions.

Personally, I think the professors are being unfair with this whole “thought question” business. In order to do well on that kind of test, you actually have to understand the material. You can’t just ingest the textbook and then regurgitate it on the exam.

What the heck are these professors trying to do? Teach us something?

-photo courtesy of purplepick

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