Worst exam season ever.

[Barry the Sprout]

Just finished my finals. Had my last exam yesterday, and I am so glad they're all over. This has been the worst exam season I've ever had, everything seemed to go wrong all at once.

My grandmother has been bed bound since about Christmas and was hospitalised shortly before the start of this term. She was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer in her rib cage and spine just before my exam started. She died two days before the exam I was most worried about, which screwed me up pretty badly. Its good that she's in no more pain, as she was clearly suffering in the last few months, and she was in her late seventies so it could be worse. But that doesn't make things a great deal better really. The world has been deprived of one more truly kind and generous person.

And then my examiners started becoming real bastards. In particular, the exam I was worried about (Morality and Values - a philosophy course, my degree is in government and economics) had questions in it that just plain weren't anything to do with the course. Call me stupid but if all of the reading on a topic is on intellectual monism, and the force of the lecture is on intellectual monism, and all the practice quetsions are on intellectual monism, then I don't expect the exam question to be on ideas of pleasure. In fact, I'm incapable of answering a question on ideas of pleasure, which leaves me having done all of the work required for the topic and being unable to do the exam. The exam didn't test your ability to use critically the knowledge of the course. In fact, I'm not sure what it tested. I just think it was very poorly written as it lowers all the people who've done work to the level of those who haven't and thus fails in its primary goal of discriminating between them and awarding grades accordingly. Thats a year long course I might as well not have done = one pissed off Barry.

And one of my other exams is also really annoying me. I didn't feel I'd done brilliantly on the coursework for it so I decided to blitz a couple of extended topics for the exam to make up for it. None of them came up. The odds against it are rather slim, but they managed somehow!

The upshot of all of this is that I've got to get two 60+ grades this year to get one overall. I've done a lot of work this year to make sure I get them, but I'm still worrying. It feels like I've been tripped over at the last hurdle. I've been scuppered by stuff I can't control, and it could cost me a degree class. I'm glad they're now over, but I just feel angry, frustrated, and horribly depressed. I've been feeling so crap recently that it was actually good to go home for my grandmothers funeral as at least then I saw my family...

Oh anyway, rant over. Thank you for listening.

[Aelia Jusa]

Very glad to listen, Barry [img]smile.gif[/img] . Sorry to hear about all your woes, especially your grandmother *hugs*. Sounds like the examiners forgot to read the course notes before they set the exam! Sometimes you really have to wonder if they've just forgotten what they taught, or if they're just feeling particularly spiteful when you come across questions or whole exams like that. I hope (and I'm sure it won't) that all your work won't have been for nothing. Crossing my fingers that your marks are good and that things are better really soon [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/bighug.gif[/img]

Hmmm it never goes good if you are stressed on an exam, though good luck with getting the grades you expect [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Bungleau]

My sympathy goes out to you, Barry, for your grandmother's passing as well as for your exams.

Back in Uni, I had a professor who would give us ideas about what would be on the exam next class. One thing we knew -- whatever topics he covered during that review session were *NEVER* on the exam...

I hope you pass everything well enough...

[Barry the Sprout]

Thanks everyone. Its always nice to get a bit of support. I'm sure I'll feel better about it after a while, but for the moment I'm just sick of the whole thing.

Another wonderful question - "Does Hume's conception of justice as artificial shed light on Aristotle's problems fitting justice into the doctrine of the mean?". Sounds innoffensive? Well, then consider that I know Hume, and that I know Aristotle. I've got good marks on both and done all the work the course guide apparently considers necessary to take the exam and get a good mark in it. And I had to blag it, because that question is just out of nowhere. I phoned up a friend who studies philosophy to a slightly higher standard than me and he assures me theres no intellectual tradition for comparing the two. There is nothing to base your answer to that question on...

Ah dammit, now I've done it again. Rant really over this time. Thanks for the hugs. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[spydar]

my condolences about your gandmother, I know exactly how you feel.
last december I had my worst exam season ever: december 5th, 3pm my opa dies, 11pm my grandma dies (opposite sides of the family). I spend that weekend talking to professors, that monday I leave for bow island, tuesday go to my grandma's funeral, wednesday go to edmonton, thursday go to high prairie (my home town), friday go to barrhead, saturday go to my opa's funeral (had to wait for relatives to come in from all over), sunday come back to calgary and write a 10 page archaeology paper, hand the paper in monday, write poli sci test on tuesday, archaeology test on wednesday, write 8 page take-home final on thursday to hand in on friday, go back home for christmas that saturday. Ya, that would be when I developed my caffeine "problem".