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Exams are shit. Discuss

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I have too many difficult exams to do and revise for. My life is poo right now (in an exam sense, not in a family sense, they are great)

Peaks and troughs of confidence are the norm for me, how about you?

I figured this would be a good thread as many of the Thumbs are exam vets or going through exams and some are exam greenhorns. We need to consolidate tactics for survival :tup:

Splurge forth your exam hangups and probs. My probs? Revision is such a draaaaag I inevitably freak out just before I step into the exam hall fearing I will know nothing. I am an infrequent revisor. I am incapable of change.

As I said...DISCUSS.

EDIT: This is a 'for fun' thread. This is mostly because I have had a little too much of Grandpa's medicine and am fed up with exams. I feel a sly nod and a wink should be enough to show you know the subject to an acceptable standard. If you work in a job that requires no more exams, you are very lucky and I want your job.

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I only ever have coursework, it's a gift and a curse. I have 9000 words in for the next 2 weeks, I'm getting there slowly.

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I'm getting close to exams - beginning of May. But then I'm done with undergrad and school until I decide I want to put myself through hell again.

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I'm editing my 14,000 word thesis right now, while also having just finished giving a 20 minute presentation on Carnap's dual concepts of probability and I have a paper on Quine's view of accuracy in our perceptions as an evolutionary necessity (basically, we should feel ok about basing science on our perceptions because, flawed though they may sometimes be, if they didn't track the real world at least somewhat accurately we'd have died off long ago) due tomorrow I've only just barely started on. That one is only about 2000 words though, so I'm saving it for later. Also, I went to sleep at 6:30 this morning after staying up to do more preparing for that presentation and finish an assignment for another class. Four hours of sleep and 5 times the recommended daily intake of energy drink later, and I'm getting really fucking sick of school work.

Of course, a month from now I'm really going to miss academic life when I have to go and try to make a go of the real world, but right now I just can't wait to finish up my last ever batch of undergrad assignments.

Also, seeing the phrase "only about 2000 words" above would have freaked the hell out of me 4 years ago. Funny how that happens.

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I have been blessed by the gods in that respect.

In high school, exams were randomly assigned to a random number of students each year. I lucked out all three years and would get an early vacation.

The undergraduate program I'm doing now doesn't have any exams except for a few electives. On the bright side I finish the semester 2 weeks earlier than 90% of the other students. However, the rest of the semester is swamped with coursework. But it's fun coursework, like 3D modelling/animation, photo compositing, etc.

So yeah, exams are pretty sweet. :yep:

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I hate exams.

I dread my end of Year 12 exams next year because they'll be really important and will determine my chances of university acceptance, terrifying.

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I used to really like exams because i was good at cramming. nanananana.

My worst was the one where in never went to classes and wasn't able to get any notes from anyone and had to learn random items from a 500 page book. Luckily it was only around 20% of the final mark in the module, but it taught me early on in my university carreer to actually know what was on the course before the night before the exam:P

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I hate exams. Even if I know the subject, I fidget under any unnecessary restrictions, like being not allowed to write out math equations on the back of a paper before inking them in the solution box, and it's affected me badly. I'm usually cool under pressure, but exams just scare me.

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Thus far I have gotten the highest grades on pretty much all of my courses. That said, I still really hate exams. Not so much the exams themselves actually but prepping for them. I always feel like I should read or should have read more, which is kind of stressing. I seldom if never feel that I'm not going to pass the exam, though.

Good thing most of the courses here have some sort of homework system that grants you extra points for the exam. That way your entire grade doesn't depend on your performance during 3 hours on a given day.

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Exams freaking suck. Seriously cba with my 6 coming up in May/June - feel like I'm going to cry. I don't want to fail :( I want to get into Oxford/UCL goddamnit :(

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I never really hated exams too much. Profs generally gave the topics out before hand so we'd know what to study or write on when we all crowded into the halls. I was always nervous before hand but once I sat down and started writing, I was in my zone.

Of course exams stopped altogether come 4th year becoming papers on topics of my choosing. About equal in difficulty really.

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Well, against all fucking odds, my honours thesis is finished. I'm so tired. I haven't had more than 4 hours sleep in a night for about two weeks. I still have a 4000 word paper to finish for my most difficult class, due Wednesday, and a ridiculously easy take home exam to write for my easiest class(this is a course which I do not take seriously at all. I did a writing assignment for it during the 15 minute bus trip to class and got an A. I really don't care about this one). Then on Saturday the comic convention happens, with Leonard Nimoy and Malcolm McDowell in the same damn room, and I will be in a gymnasium writing the last exam of my undergraduate career. I'm going to try and go for an hour in the morning before running off to the exam at least. Sigh.

So yes, exams are so incredibly shit. On the other hand, I'm three things away from being done and I can't wait to write what I have to and just walk out of that campus laughing and probably drunk.

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Currently on the home stretch of a 6000 word bender, after not sleeping in 2 days. 600 more words to go, time to drag some more theoretical material out of Akira:tup:

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Jesus, you guys are spending so much time and effort on your education. That's awesome.

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Jesus, you guys are spending so much time and effort on your education. That's awesome.

I try not to fall into the common trope of "Hey, I'm a student. I drink liqour consistently and never go into classes. Give me a degree"

I guess it's a weird personal thing where I feel like I need to personally earn my degree, instead of walk in the parking (?) it.

Or I'm beyond the point of logical comprehension due to extreme fatigue:violin:

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No, I get it, and it's a fine attitude, to be sure. It's just far from how I went about it, which sort of sucks, but I'm fine with it.

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After finally putting a bow on what could have possible been the longest essay I've ever done (Timewise), I am now going to celebrate with a chicken sandwich, a cup of tea, and a shower before I potter off to uni in my dishevelled, sleep deprived state and live out the rest of my day. This could potentially be long.

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I'm in classes with enough jerks who get their education paid for. I've worked at least 3 shifts a week since my final year of high school in order to keep paying for my classes (at one point I managed a movie theater by night, worked a coffee shop on weekends, and had classes during the days. 5 shifts at the theater, 3 at the coffee shop per week. To be fair, I only had four classes that term instead of the full 5 course load.), so I feel like I should get my money's worth and actually learn something. I see people who have made it to almost 25 and thanks to being in school have still never worked any job, and it's a bit irritating to me. I don't want to be that, so I work my ass off.

The downside is I haven't had a social life outside of my girlfriend and going to maybe 1 out of every 4 of the weekly game nights that the few friends I've hung onto from high school have. I went drinking on Friday with a friend I hadn't seen for about 10 months but had been incredibly close with for 6 years previous, and it was right back like old times, so that's good. I desperately needed a break, and ran into him while walking to work, so we made plans. Trying to re-make the most important of the old social connections I had a couple of years ago. I was pretty popular for a while there (my 20th birthday was a 50+ person affair that took over two bars), but the effort I've been putting toward school has been taking its toll on my personal life (my 22nd (most recent) was me, my girlfriend, and two mutual friends). Still, have made more plans with this friend from old times and another of my best friends is returning to Calgary next month after spending two years living in London, so I'll have the people who count most. Maybe all this school stuff is a blessing, and I'm just cutting out the people that don't really matter in favour of the ones I truly care about. One way to look at it, I guess.

EDIT: Sorry Sombre, I was writing while you posted. That was all a response to 'blix. Good work getting that shit done, man. After this last year of work, I now have entirely new personal meaning for "longest paper I've written," and can certainly relate to the "thank god that shit is finally done" feeling. Congrats! Mind if I ask what it was on? Your mention of Akira intrigued me.

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That one was just identifiers on what specific characteristics Japanese Horror Cinema has that other international cinema doesn't. I just dropped a bit of Akira in there for some body abjection horror, but nothing too inherently serious.

I've ended up writing about Akira, however, in a great many essays I've done this year. I wrote a big piece about it for the construction of abstraction in animé, and I'm writing my final thesis next year on Posthumanity in anime and manga with relation to things like cyborgs/post-life culture. I need to propose this topic by Friday actually, but it's only Tuesday, I'll consider making it more eloquent. I'll no doubt come off like some pretentious neckbeard twat, but hey, I guess it's necessary!

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I'm in classes with enough jerks who get their education paid for. I've worked at least 3 shifts a week since my final year of high school in order to keep paying for my classes (at one point I managed a movie theater by night, worked a coffee shop on weekends, and had classes during the days. 5 shifts at the theater, 3 at the coffee shop per week. To be fair, I only had four classes that term instead of the full 5 course load.), so I feel like I should get my money's worth and actually learn something. I see people who have made it to almost 25 and thanks to being in school have still never worked any job, and it's a bit irritating to me. I don't want to be that, so I work my ass off.

Oh man, that still makes me so angry. I always felt so spiteful towards the rich kids at my school whose parents paid for their apartment or housing as well as all of their food and fun so they never had to work any shifts at all while trying to finish college. In the meantime I was struggling with shitty part time jobs (that always got pushed up to full time because I'm such a pussy who can't say no to working my days off or later than normal) and had major problems having enough time just to finish my work and get by with a B in most classes.

It kind of led into a split where the working kids hung out with eachother while the kids who had all the new gadgets and still haven't worked a day stayed with their own group.

The bright side is that each group seemed to have an equal amount of people who almost purposefully pissed away their education.

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It's 4:20 in the morning and I'm still writing that damn 4000 word paper on the competing views on single event probability proposed by Carnap (1945) and Popper (1959) for that damned analytic philosophy class. I'm so damn tired, but can't let myself sleep for two reasons. First, this thing is due in 11 and a half hours, and if I let myself drift off now I'd probably sleep past when I need to have it in. Second, I've pumped so many fucking energy drinks into my body that I don't think I'm physically capable of sleep for at least another 6-ish hours. I really want to be done and not think of logical formulations for confirming scientific theories, or how we can justify a claim that there is a 20% chance it will rain tomorrow when there is no observable phenomenon "20% rain." Looking around my room I see enough empty cans of red bull, rockstar, monster, full throttle, and beaver buzz (Canadian energy drink, eh?) to give me about 7 heart attacks, yet somehow I'm still writing. Sorry to bitch about all this, but I needed to take a bit of a break (1200 words to go...) and it seemed like venting would be the way to go. Goddamned fucking end of term.

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