A week ago, I took my first exam. It was a five-hour exam that took place on Saturday at 8am. No, unfortunately I am not kidding about that. The good thing was it meant I would be done with the exam at 1pm and get to enjoy the rest of the weekend.
When preparing for my exam, I had grand plans of having read through and taken notes on all texts and articles three or four weeks before the exam. But I did not turn into a model student over night, and I am still the same old procrastinator I have always been. Up until five days before the exam, I regularly experienced days when I pushed the studying back so late in the day that I ended up going to bed and not having done a single thing for my exam. In those times I spent more time thinking about studying than actual studying. However, a week before my exam, I had finally read all texts and articles and was done typing up my summaries of everything important, and after that one day of not lifting a finger at all, I spent four days at the library cramming everything into my brain that I could.
For me studying for an exam is not something I do frequently or am very good at. I am particularly bad at sitting down and just memorizing stuff. I get distracted, my mind starts wandering and at the end of a day of studying for 7-8 hours, my brain feels so drained that I have no idea how much of the day I remember because I cannot even think one coherent thought.
Four days is incredibly short to memorize as much as I had to, and my only hope was that I already knew a lot more than I thought from simply working with the texts for the past semester and weeks. I did not have much of a choice: MA exams are no dress rehearsal. You do not get to not show up because you’re not prepared. If you don’t, it means you failed. I do know that you can fail once or twice and can retake it, but I have no idea what the procedure is if you do. I don’t know this because I never read up on it because I decided that I would not fail. Even if my preparations didn’t go quite as planned.
So I decided that I would simply make the best of the time I had left. I decided that four days can be a lot of time if you stay calm and focused. I decided that becoming nervous or thinking negatively would achieve exactly the opposite of what I was trying to achieve. So I didn’t become nervous and I did not break down crying. I stayed positive and calm and collected. I stayed rational. I told myself that I would do the best I could with what time I had left and then that would simply be it. I would do my best, and I would not be able to do anything to change it, and whatever I did not know by Friday evening I would simply not know on Saturday morning. I would not be able to change anything about that either. So there was absolutely no use in wasting any time or energy on worrying, being nervous or upset. Makes sense, right? The amazing thing is, it worked.
I stayed calm. I went home from the library at 6pm on Friday (as opposed to 10pm the previous days). I ate dinner while watching The Vampire Diaries, I read through some of my notes again, took a shower, packed my bag for the exam, and was in bed by 9.30pm. I did wake up once in the middle of the night but other than that I slept well, I got plenty of sleep and was well-rested by Saturday morning.
Saturday morning I left for the bus stop a little early to make sure I would not miss the bus. So far so good. The bus ended up being a few minutes late but no problem, I left so early I could have walked to the university and still have been on time, right? Well, when another girl showed up at the bus stop and pointed out to me that it’s Saturday I realized that I had checked the bus schedule for the wrong day. There was no bus at the time I thought on Saturdays. I must admit, I did get a little nervous then.
And then things got a little funny. I wanted to tweet about the bus mishap but I had left my phone at home (on purpose because no phones were allowed during the exam). Then I wanted to tweet about wanting to tweet and not being able to … Errrr, being up at 6am does strange things to my brain. But as it provided some comic relief to the situation, it was welcome. It also made me think that chances are, most of my friends would not even get it and look at me like I’m crazy. Please tell me you do? That I am not the only one who something like that would happen to?
The bus would get me to the university 10 minutes before the exam was due to start but I had planned on being there 30 minutes early. And what if the bus was late? It wasn’t, and I was not the only one taking that bus who was taking the exam, so that calmed me down immensely. I ended up getting there 10 minutes before it started and I was fine. Even though it didn’t work out as planned, everything worked out.
My hands did shake a little as I was opening the envelope that contained my question and the sheets for me to write on. But that only lasted for a few seconds and once I knew what my question was I was focused again. I worked away quietly for the next five hours. About an hour into the exam, I took a short break and reflected a little on the situation. After all, this was it. The first of the exams that the past 7 years led up to. And this was it? Seriously? To me it felt like a bit of an anti-climax. I had expected it to be bigger, but in the end it was just an exam. A very long one, granted. But it was an exam, and I did and applied just what I was taught and had learned in the past 7 years.
I don’t think I did perfectly. There were probably people who studied loads more, and there were probably things I forgot or expressed poorly. I also doubt that my exam was well-structured, but unfortunately, with paper and pen, you do not have a copy and paste function. The exam lasted five hours. I wrote roughly 16 pages. I ran out of time before I ran out of things to say but I was able to answer all parts of the question, which I think is a good thing.
All in all, the exam was a positive experience because I felt like I knew what I was doing. I think a lot of students make the exams to be this huge insurmountable thing, which it is not. We have been studying for this a lot longer than just the past few weeks and by the time we take the exam, we know what to do. This is our field, we studied for it (even if it wasn’t as much as we had planned) and we do know what we’re doing. I have no idea how well I did, how much the professor expects or how tough he grades, and I won’t know for a couple more months.
I would certainly be disappointed if I got a bad grade, as I am not expecting to, but I do have this little voice in me that makes me fear I am judging my work completely wrong and really did horribly, on the exam as well as my thesis. Because I would be absolutely crushed if I got bad grades on either. But before I find out about the grades, I have another exam to take, and if it goes as well as this one did, I will be okay. Because nothing could be worse than thinking you performed poorly and having to go into another exam with that feeling.
And next time, I will remember that it is Saturday when I check the bus schedule.
How do you feel about taking exams? Do you get nervous?
Phew!! So glad it’s over – do you have any more? I study my ARSE off whenever I have exams – I will cancel all plans for a week leading up to it and then cram everything in the morning of, asking whoever will oblige if they’ll read me back my highlighted study sheets and quiz me on everything. I get terribly nervous before exams but I know I definitely put as much work as I can into them!
.-= Emily Jane’s last blog post: My (Literally) Naked Fear =-.
Yeah, I have another written exam (again Saturday, again 8am, again five hours) coming up in two weeks, but only two more oral exams after that (of an hour each). I did not make a lot of plans for the week of the exam, I only met up with a friend for lunch once. I kind of like to withdraw and live only in my head for the days before an exam, and avoid interacting with others, but once the exam is over, I almost crave social interaction.
Oh I know what you’re talking about with the phone. I forgot mine at home once and then was like “Oh no problem, I’m just gonna call and say that I forgot the phone”, well, obviously I couldn’t call, because I had left my phone ;-)
I’m pretty relaxed about exams. I try to give my best and that’s it. I guess I’m pretty lucky about that…
.-= Deia’s last blog post: Friend Makin’ Monday =-.
That’s great! I would usually not care about exams that much, but these are just. so. important. None of my grades of the past 7 years matter, and everything depends on five grades. That’s really tough to handle and I think in that situation it’s easy to lose it (though I didn’t).
I feel the same way about exams. I get nervous at first and start shaking when I turn over the page with the questions. But once I see what is asked, I start calming down. It’s crazy but good. But the interesting thing is that I only felt this way about my exams in Germany. Here, in the US, I am completely calm… maybe because everything is a little less strict.
.-= Stefanie’s last blog post: Home Improvement: The Dining Room Edition. =-.
In the US what I found very helpful is that no single exam matters as much as it does here. Here whether you pass or fail a class usually depends entirely on one exam or one paper. My degree’s GPA depends on five grades. I loved how it’s done in the States (at least in undergrad classes), where you know that even if you don’t do that well, you can make up for it. Less pressure.
So glad you climbed the first little hill on your big hike to your degree!
I remember those long exams at the end of my studies and I was nervous, mostly because no papers, no grades throughout my whole college career mattered and it all came down to the final exams. If that’s not pressure, I don’t know what is.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for your other exams. I know you’ll be fine!
.-= san’s last blog post: Time at the beach =-.
I completely agree. I think it is insane how the GPA is calculated here, though I hope it will work to my favor as my grades throughout the years were mostly average. I would have probably put more work into papers and exams if they had mattered, though, as sometimes I went into a class thinking, ‘who cares about the grade as long as I pass.’ Thanks!
Do you usually type your summary? Is that a good tip? I usually write down cause perhaps writing down makes me memorize and understand better the topics. My only problem is to memorize everything and as you could memorize everything in ony four days, I think you´re better than what you judge yourself to be. I could never memorize so much in such a short time, even more having the pressure of a deadline over me.