A Satisfying End
It is now the end of finals week, and the relief that washes over my very soul is nothing unlike the Balm of Gilead. Although I only had two exams I had to take this week, they took every ounce of my energy to prepare for. Both were cumulative, and those always take an extra measure of studying mercies.
Accounting
My Accounting final was on Tuesday evening. I spent about fourteen hours studying for it. My first strategy was to begin with Chapter 1 and read the book through–all thirteen chapters. But it quickly became obvious I was getting nowhere with that method of madness. So I compiled all my notes from prior tests and concentrated on those, as well as just skimming through chapters. I attended two review sessions held by other Accounting instructors, and while they were helpful to the extent that an hour can be helpful, they also revealed how much I didn’t know, how much I’d forgotten, and how much I needed to learn yet before the final.
I studied all afternoon on Sunday, all evening on Monday, and then Tuesday morning, I went to work, but didn’t clock in. Instead, I studied for about two hours–then I clocked in, did what I had to do, then left about 12:30 and headed for the library for the final cram session. When I arrived at the parking lot, I turned my engine off and I heard this burbling noise coming from the radiator. I popped the hood and saw that my reservoir was completely dry. This was not really the Ideal Time for car troubles. So I called Martin, and he advised me to drive it to an auto parts store and put some anti-freeze in. I decided to wait to do anything till after the exam.
My little friend Jill happened to arrive at the library just ahead of me, so we studied together. The problem with studying together is that you get so distracted with Issues of Life. Jill told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend at some point within the last week, so I did quite a bit of my own brand of counseling. I had been telling her all semester she needs to dump this guy–he had all the classic warning signs of being a real dweeb. I heaped all manner of Wise Advice onto her shoulders and told her exactly what he would do to try to get her back (I’ve seen it all before with the girls at work); she needs to expect it, and that will hopefully give her the strength she needs to resist going back to him. I sure hope she doesn’t take him back. She deserves so much better. She said she felt much better about it after we talked, but I’m just afraid when I–the guard dog–am not around, he’ll be back.
Other than that, we studied for about four hours solid before the test began at 5:30 p.m. We were joined later by another classmate who happened along and saw us studying. So just talking about the different areas we were having troubles in helped a lot.
Oh that test was bad, alright. Instead of being a practical, hands-on type of thing, it was all multiple choice. And although multiple choice doesn’t sound like it, those tests can be pretty bad. You have to have a lot of theory in your head, and often, a lucky guess doesn’t work.
Jill offered to take me to the auto parts store after the exam, so I took her up on it. She’s got one of those little cars that is teeny, tiny, with no back seat. Cute, but very impractical. It made me feel like a lummox trying to fold up into it. We got the anti-freeze and put it into the reservoir by the aid of a little penlight. I must remember to keep a better flashlight in my car!
I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I arrived home. I should’ve immediately begun studying for the next final, but I was just simply too tired.
Economics
Studying for Economics in Professor B’s class is exceptionally difficult simply because he is so unpredictable in what he puts on the test. He pulls his questions from some type of a test bank, so the language that the test is in is often foreign to that of what we’d heard in class. Added to that is having the options “All of the above” and “None of the above” to pick from. I hate that!
Professor B gives five tests total with no opportunities for extra credit; you can miss a total of fifteen for all five tests and still have an A. So figuring out how many I could miss on the final was critical in trying to prepare for it. That meant that I had to know my grade for Test 4, which we took last week. If we wanted those tests back to look at what we had missed, we had to call him and make arrangements to meet with him. With all my Accounting stress, I hadn’t had a chance to make arrangements until Thursday, the day before the final.
I had actually tried to stop in to see the test last Friday when I picked up my English paper, but he was not in. So I ended up just calling him for the grade, and he told me I had missed three. I was very uncomfortable with not knowing which three, so yesterday, I thought I’d try to actually go over there and look at Test 4 to make sure the same thing doesn’t surface on the final. He was in a meeting all day, so by the time he called me back and said I could come, it was already about 3 p.m. He was about ready to head out, but he said he’d stay there until I came. So that put a little pressure on me, for sure. “You didn’t miss very many,” he said. “You said I missed three,” I said. “I know. I said you didn’t miss very many,” he repeated. Not sure what that meant, but I still wanted to see the thing.
My journey across town was doomed from the very beginning. I hit every single traffic light red. I thought that since this was finals week, and therefore, fewer students on campus at any given time of day, there would surely be parking available at the top of the hill even though you have to pay 25 cents for the privilege. I was, in fact, counting on it. This parking is much closer and would cut down on the time. Not so. Not a single parking space was available, so I had to backtrack back down to the Chestnut lot. I was very anxious by this time, because the twenty minutes I had told him it would take me was long gone. I began a brisk march and took the shortest route available. Well, it had rained that morning, and so the ground along the usual path was very soft and downright muddy! I neither had the time to change my route nor the inclination, so into the mud I went and subsequently emerged with much regret. My shoes looked really bad. Trying to hurry while rubbing the mud off in the grass at the same time didn’t exactly work well either. Once I had crossed the road, walked across the faculty parking lot, around the library, through the Fine Arts Center, and across the bridge to Grise, I was a little grouchy.
Professor B was standing in the hall talking to another professor across the hall. “Well, where have you been?” He called out. I just shook my head and said, “You don’t even want to go there.” I hunkered down to study the offensive test. It turned out I had only missed two, instead of three; I could see the error I had made in the first one, but the second one was just as confusing when I left as it was when I got there even though he tried to explain it to me. Some things are better left untouched. “If I’ve missed seven questions to date,” I said, “that means that I can miss eight on the exam tomorrow, right?” Professor B didn’t think I should think of it that way, but how can I help it? I must have a little Source of Comfort to take with me to class.
Professor B has made comments all semester about how he thinks I’m “good at this stuff.” I beg to differ. I think economics is one of the hardest subjects I have come across to date, although it didn’t keep me from studying just that much more. “Shall I just use your test as the key tomorrow?” he asked good-naturedly, as I handed Test 4 back over. “Be my guest,” I said, laughing, “although I’m afraid it would disadvantage the other students.”
So this morning, we gathered together at 8:00 to take the final exam. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but I guarantee you if I hadn’t been so nit-picky about it, I would not have done well at all. It was hard, as usual, but at least I was familiar with all the topics that were presented and tried to reason them out. But poor Erica, who left at the same time I did, said she didn’t even recognize some of the questions as topics we had covered this semester. Ouch. Either she didn’t study like she should have or she had taken poor notes–neither one conducive to passing the exam.
I don’t know how I did specifically on this exam, but I did get an A for the class, which is the most important thing. I figure I’ll give Professor B a five-week break before I show up and ask for my grade.
My Accounting professor reports that I got “more than a solid A” in the class. I had gotten 147 out of 150 on the final, and because of doing all my homework and doing it right, I had exceeded the 500 points possible for the whole class.
I got a 100 out of 100 on my final English paper. The class average on the paper was a 68.9, so ouch again. I’m not sure what happened with the rest of them. We had a good professor, but I guess writing just isn’t everybody’s thing. My average for the class overall was a 97.
So all things considered, I shall declare this a satisfying end to a difficult semester.
Accounting
My Accounting final was on Tuesday evening. I spent about fourteen hours studying for it. My first strategy was to begin with Chapter 1 and read the book through–all thirteen chapters. But it quickly became obvious I was getting nowhere with that method of madness. So I compiled all my notes from prior tests and concentrated on those, as well as just skimming through chapters. I attended two review sessions held by other Accounting instructors, and while they were helpful to the extent that an hour can be helpful, they also revealed how much I didn’t know, how much I’d forgotten, and how much I needed to learn yet before the final.
I studied all afternoon on Sunday, all evening on Monday, and then Tuesday morning, I went to work, but didn’t clock in. Instead, I studied for about two hours–then I clocked in, did what I had to do, then left about 12:30 and headed for the library for the final cram session. When I arrived at the parking lot, I turned my engine off and I heard this burbling noise coming from the radiator. I popped the hood and saw that my reservoir was completely dry. This was not really the Ideal Time for car troubles. So I called Martin, and he advised me to drive it to an auto parts store and put some anti-freeze in. I decided to wait to do anything till after the exam.
My little friend Jill happened to arrive at the library just ahead of me, so we studied together. The problem with studying together is that you get so distracted with Issues of Life. Jill told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend at some point within the last week, so I did quite a bit of my own brand of counseling. I had been telling her all semester she needs to dump this guy–he had all the classic warning signs of being a real dweeb. I heaped all manner of Wise Advice onto her shoulders and told her exactly what he would do to try to get her back (I’ve seen it all before with the girls at work); she needs to expect it, and that will hopefully give her the strength she needs to resist going back to him. I sure hope she doesn’t take him back. She deserves so much better. She said she felt much better about it after we talked, but I’m just afraid when I–the guard dog–am not around, he’ll be back.
Other than that, we studied for about four hours solid before the test began at 5:30 p.m. We were joined later by another classmate who happened along and saw us studying. So just talking about the different areas we were having troubles in helped a lot.
Oh that test was bad, alright. Instead of being a practical, hands-on type of thing, it was all multiple choice. And although multiple choice doesn’t sound like it, those tests can be pretty bad. You have to have a lot of theory in your head, and often, a lucky guess doesn’t work.
Jill offered to take me to the auto parts store after the exam, so I took her up on it. She’s got one of those little cars that is teeny, tiny, with no back seat. Cute, but very impractical. It made me feel like a lummox trying to fold up into it. We got the anti-freeze and put it into the reservoir by the aid of a little penlight. I must remember to keep a better flashlight in my car!
I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I arrived home. I should’ve immediately begun studying for the next final, but I was just simply too tired.
Economics
Studying for Economics in Professor B’s class is exceptionally difficult simply because he is so unpredictable in what he puts on the test. He pulls his questions from some type of a test bank, so the language that the test is in is often foreign to that of what we’d heard in class. Added to that is having the options “All of the above” and “None of the above” to pick from. I hate that!
Professor B gives five tests total with no opportunities for extra credit; you can miss a total of fifteen for all five tests and still have an A. So figuring out how many I could miss on the final was critical in trying to prepare for it. That meant that I had to know my grade for Test 4, which we took last week. If we wanted those tests back to look at what we had missed, we had to call him and make arrangements to meet with him. With all my Accounting stress, I hadn’t had a chance to make arrangements until Thursday, the day before the final.
I had actually tried to stop in to see the test last Friday when I picked up my English paper, but he was not in. So I ended up just calling him for the grade, and he told me I had missed three. I was very uncomfortable with not knowing which three, so yesterday, I thought I’d try to actually go over there and look at Test 4 to make sure the same thing doesn’t surface on the final. He was in a meeting all day, so by the time he called me back and said I could come, it was already about 3 p.m. He was about ready to head out, but he said he’d stay there until I came. So that put a little pressure on me, for sure. “You didn’t miss very many,” he said. “You said I missed three,” I said. “I know. I said you didn’t miss very many,” he repeated. Not sure what that meant, but I still wanted to see the thing.
My journey across town was doomed from the very beginning. I hit every single traffic light red. I thought that since this was finals week, and therefore, fewer students on campus at any given time of day, there would surely be parking available at the top of the hill even though you have to pay 25 cents for the privilege. I was, in fact, counting on it. This parking is much closer and would cut down on the time. Not so. Not a single parking space was available, so I had to backtrack back down to the Chestnut lot. I was very anxious by this time, because the twenty minutes I had told him it would take me was long gone. I began a brisk march and took the shortest route available. Well, it had rained that morning, and so the ground along the usual path was very soft and downright muddy! I neither had the time to change my route nor the inclination, so into the mud I went and subsequently emerged with much regret. My shoes looked really bad. Trying to hurry while rubbing the mud off in the grass at the same time didn’t exactly work well either. Once I had crossed the road, walked across the faculty parking lot, around the library, through the Fine Arts Center, and across the bridge to Grise, I was a little grouchy.
Professor B was standing in the hall talking to another professor across the hall. “Well, where have you been?” He called out. I just shook my head and said, “You don’t even want to go there.” I hunkered down to study the offensive test. It turned out I had only missed two, instead of three; I could see the error I had made in the first one, but the second one was just as confusing when I left as it was when I got there even though he tried to explain it to me. Some things are better left untouched. “If I’ve missed seven questions to date,” I said, “that means that I can miss eight on the exam tomorrow, right?” Professor B didn’t think I should think of it that way, but how can I help it? I must have a little Source of Comfort to take with me to class.
Professor B has made comments all semester about how he thinks I’m “good at this stuff.” I beg to differ. I think economics is one of the hardest subjects I have come across to date, although it didn’t keep me from studying just that much more. “Shall I just use your test as the key tomorrow?” he asked good-naturedly, as I handed Test 4 back over. “Be my guest,” I said, laughing, “although I’m afraid it would disadvantage the other students.”
So this morning, we gathered together at 8:00 to take the final exam. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but I guarantee you if I hadn’t been so nit-picky about it, I would not have done well at all. It was hard, as usual, but at least I was familiar with all the topics that were presented and tried to reason them out. But poor Erica, who left at the same time I did, said she didn’t even recognize some of the questions as topics we had covered this semester. Ouch. Either she didn’t study like she should have or she had taken poor notes–neither one conducive to passing the exam.
I don’t know how I did specifically on this exam, but I did get an A for the class, which is the most important thing. I figure I’ll give Professor B a five-week break before I show up and ask for my grade.
My Accounting professor reports that I got “more than a solid A” in the class. I had gotten 147 out of 150 on the final, and because of doing all my homework and doing it right, I had exceeded the 500 points possible for the whole class.
I got a 100 out of 100 on my final English paper. The class average on the paper was a 68.9, so ouch again. I’m not sure what happened with the rest of them. We had a good professor, but I guess writing just isn’t everybody’s thing. My average for the class overall was a 97.
So all things considered, I shall declare this a satisfying end to a difficult semester.
posted by Kris at 12/16/2005 09:31:00 PM
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