The "So here's how my exam today went..." thread

ReacherCreature

GR3007 Alexander the Great yesterday. The paper was simple, the questions nice and expansive, but you needed to know your stuff. I answered a question on his military tactics - which was very very similar to the essay I handed up during the year. Second question was OK, I realised half way through that I should have did a different question but it's no huge deal, it was fine.

Off 'till Wednesday until I have a showdown with Adolf Hitler.

Parsley

Faith wrote: »

AP3015 this evening. Very, very fair paper actually. Any low marks I get will be from poor answers on my part rather than unfair questions (unlike yesterday).

twas grand for me too! i'd only prepared the topics of offender profiling and psychopathy so was praying for them to come up, and they did. delira!

teddy b123

Serbitar wrote: »

You know you're in trouble when you actually start laughing away at the paper. Supervisor gave me a funny look and all. The single most miserable exam I've ever done in my life. Sure, something to plan August around I guess.

Really? lots of people were b1tching about how hard the exam was! i thought it was ok, it was pretty much like all the past papers and practice exam they emailed us?

btw anyone know how its marked? is there attempt marks / marks lost for slips and blunders like in the leaving cert?

Serbitar

teddy b123 wrote: »

Really? lots of people were b1tching about how hard the exam was! i thought it was ok, it was pretty much like all the past papers and practice exam they emailed us?

btw anyone know how its marked? is there attempt marks / marks lost for slips and blunders like in the leaving cert?

To be honest...I didn't really do a tap of work for it :P I passed both the MCQs handy enough so I was hoping it'd be the same sort of stuff, but it wasn't to be. Also didn't help that I blanked on the Applied stuff.

Cows Go µ

SuperInfinity wrote: »

Your issue is with the concept of "reading time", not with that supervisor who was doing his job properly (unlike the other supervisors).

I think it's a valid enough concept. Let's face it, if it's going out of your head within seconds/minutes after staring at it, you don't really know it very well. I've also been in the position where I've crammed so much that I wanted to get it out super fast, and obviously didn't understand it very well or remember much of it afterwards. If it's that transient then you don't know it as you should.

In fairness I use that time to right down the random formulas for the exam. That doesn't mean I don't understand them, just that I can't remember exactly where each thing should be all the time. And I know as soon as I'm asked to remember it in a question then I won't so I write them all down as soon as I can on the paper. I write everything that might possibly be relevant to the module down because I know when I need it I won't remember. However, I understand it perfectly and can generally derive a lot of the stuff (but that would take ages and would be a massive waste of time) and I know how to use it. I'm a mathematician, I don't remember vast amounts of crap, I work things out well. Hell, I know lecturers who don't remember the formula so why should we?

On topic, I haven't had any exams yet, first one on Thursday. They should be all grand except for the last one, we have no idea what will come up or how hard it will be. The lecturer has never taught this module before so we have nothing to go on and he won't tell us anything other than it will be on what we covered in class. Which is something we assumed

SuperInfinity

Cows Go µ wrote: »

In fairness I use that time to right down the random formulas for the exam. That doesn't mean I don't understand them, just that I can't remember exactly where each thing should be all the time. And I know as soon as I'm asked to remember it in a question then I won't so I write them all down as soon as I can on the paper. I write everything that might possibly be relevant to the module down because I know when I need it I won't remember. However, I understand it perfectly and can generally derive a lot of the stuff (but that would take ages and would be a massive waste of time) and I know how to use it. I'm a mathematician, I don't remember vast amounts of crap, I work things out well. Hell, I know lecturers who don't remember the formula so why should we?

Then the formula should be written on the exam script! If you do not feel it necessary that you should know the formulae then your view is that they should be written on the exam script. I was assuming that the script was fair when I wrote that.

Reading time is a valid concept whatever way you look at it. Think of it like a part of the exam: You do not have access to your material but you are also not allowed to write.

If you can't keep it in your head for the length of reading time there is then you DON'T KNOW IT AS WELL AS YOU SHOULD FOR THE EXAM. I've gone into exams hardly even bothering to look at my notes because I knew it so well.

In fact if they stopped you from looking at your notes for 24 hours beforehand, that would really sort the people who knew the material from the people chancing their arm better. But of course then they would need to cut out a lot of material.

Semantics: By my understanding of the term "understanding": If you understand them then they don't appear "random". If you understand them then you can derive them pretty much instantly in your head. I would never say I "understood" a formula unless I could derive it almost instantly. Maybe you understand how to USE the formula, that's a different thing. That's the easy thing. It's like the difference between understanding how a car works and how to use a car. Knowing what each of the terms in the formula does is like the noob/passing student's idea of "understanding" a formula.

I didn't understand the majority of the formulae that I used in my exams... I understood how to USE the formulae but not the formulae themselves.

So by my usage of the word "understanding" of a formula, you would not forget the formula because you would far sooner forget your understanding far sooner than forgetting the formula. And that is how I use it. You are free to use the word as you like, but I wouldn't use it that way.

teddy b123

Serbitar wrote: »

To be honest...I didn't really do a tap of work for it :P I passed both the MCQs handy enough so I was hoping it'd be the same sort of stuff, but it wasn't to be. Also didn't help that I blanked on the Applied stuff.

Yeah blanking in an exam really does suck! im glad i spent almost two weeks on it! made up for not being there for a lot of Ms Rebrova's and Mckay's lectures!

seandoiler

Cows Go µ wrote: »

On topic, I haven't had any exams yet, first one on Thursday. They should be all grand except for the last one, we have no idea what will come up or how hard it will be. The lecturer has never taught this module before so we have nothing to go on and he won't tell us anything other than it will be on what we covered in class. Which is something we assumed

not sure any lecturer should be telling you what is on the paper in fairness so i'm not surprised you weren't told much ;-)

teddy b123

not sure any lecturer should be telling you what is on the paper in fairness so i'm not surprised you weren't told much ;-)

Yeah and lecturers should probably make an effort in changing the questions form year to year, not just changing the order they ask them! :P

Faith

Parsley wrote: »

twas grand for me too! i'd only prepared the topics of offender profiling and psychopathy so was praying for them to come up, and they did. delira!

Ooh, an anonymous classmate! Now I'm wondering who you are

Parsley

Faith wrote: »

Ooh, an anonymous classmate! Now I'm wondering who you are

i'm only in forensic psychology, cos i'm doing chemistry with forensics. and i didn't go to any of the lectures so you'll never have met me at all!

cookie_wolf

Parsley wrote: »

twas grand for me too! i'd only prepared the topics of offender profiling and psychopathy so was praying for them to come up, and they did. delira!

It was all I really prepared for too. I attempted to prepare for the cognitive factors with sexual offenders, but that didn't go so well. Otherwise, I'm actually a forensic psychology major at my home school (I'm Erasmus) with a fair number of forensic classes under my belt so I went in hoping those classes would help me, if all else failed.

Then again I also figured, "Well, if I fail, I can retake it once I get home" which isn't the best way to approach a final, really.

Otherwise, I nearly hyperventilated at Learning & Behavior and for Health Psychology, I ranted on about sleep deprivation while suffering from serious sleep deprivation so god knows how that'll come out. I'm actually done all my finals now, since my other psych course was an essay and my Irish one was in March. That one went horribly...

Serbitar

teddy b123 wrote: »

Yeah blanking in an exam really does suck! im glad i spent almost two weeks on it! made up for not being there for a lot of Ms Rebrova's and Mckay's lectures!

Literally went to 2 of each of their lectures. Still can't understand how I failed... :P

teddy b123

Literally went to 2 of each of their lectures. Still can't understand how I failed...

Im gonna try to let every incoming first year know to avoid ma1003 anyway, or at least warn them that ben might start off slowly with the number line but the difficulty grows faster than the positive half of a tan curve!

Banjo Fella

SuperInfinity wrote: »

If you can't keep it in your head for the length of reading time there is then you DON'T KNOW IT AS WELL AS YOU SHOULD FOR THE EXAM. I've gone into exams hardly even bothering to look at my notes because I knew it so well.

Unfortunately, not everybody finds it that easy to retain lots of immensely complicated equations, particularly under the pressure of facing a challenging exam. It isn't necessarily a reflection of how much effort they've put into their revision, some people (myself included!) just find it really hard to remember tons and tons of stuff on demand.

Reading time is there to allow students to prepare for answering their exam paper. I typically use it to choose the questions I feel most comfortable answering, and to jot down reminders about how best to approach each part - this usually includes writing down any formulae I feel might be relevant. If I don't write it down when I have my first "hunch" about a question, it's very likely that it'll have gone from my mind once I finally come around to it an hour or so later. Your first ideas about a question can be crucial to solving it, but you'll have long forgotten them after completing an hour or so of confusing algebra in your first few questions!

Exams are about testing a student's ability at a subject - and in the case of maths exams, as Cows Go μ was discussing, it should be a measure of your problem solving ability. I don't feel maths students should be punished for having a hard time memorising, say, the Differential Chapman-Kolmogorov equations. Where's the harm in letting them scribble a few memos at the beginning of an exam?

teddy b123

Banjo Fella wrote: »

Unfortunately...

Couldnt agree more with what youve said. I didnt think they'd give reading time to exams like maths. id have thought it would be more suited to something where you have a fair amount of 'text' to read through, so youre not trying to scan through it and do the questions at the same time

UpTheSlashers

If you have to repeat in August does it cause a lot of hassle starting 2nd year? I heard you cant go on until you get the results so you end up missing the first few lectures and get left behind a bit.

deisedude

UpTheSlashers wrote: »

If you have to repeat in August does it cause a lot of hassle starting 2nd year? I heard you cant go on until you get the results so you end up missing the first few lectures and get left behind a bit.

You may not be able to pay registration or pick subjects until the first week of college but you can still attend lectures so no you wont get left behind

SuperInfinity

Banjo Fella wrote: »

Unfortunately, not everybody finds it that easy to retain lots of immensely complicated equations, particularly under the pressure of facing a challenging exam. It isn't necessarily a reflection of how much effort they've put into their revision, some people (myself included!) just find it really hard to remember tons and tons of stuff on demand.

Since when is an exam result meant to be a "reflection of how much effort" you've put into an exam? Getting rewarded for how much effort you put in is what might happen in primary school or early secondary school (and sometimes in college). This is meant to test your competency at a subject.

Banjo Fella wrote: »

Reading time is there to allow students to prepare for answering their exam paper.

But reading time is not exam time proper. There are rules to differentiate it from exam time. Even if tearing you away from your notes and not allowing you to "copy" the material you've just seen is an unintended consequence, that doesn't make it unfair.

Banjo Fella wrote: »

I typically use it to choose the questions I feel most comfortable answering, and to jot down reminders about how best to approach each part - this usually includes writing down any formulae I feel might be relevant. If I don't write it down when I have my first "hunch" about a question, it's very likely that it'll have gone from my mind once I finally come around to it an hour or so later. Your first ideas about a question can be crucial to solving it, but you'll have long forgotten them after completing an hour or so of confusing algebra in your first few questions!

These may be good and smart strategies to use for answering questions, but that doesn't mean "reading time" is a faulty concept. People who are very proficient with things remember what they've seen to do with that thing much better.

Banjo Fella wrote: »

Exams are about testing a student's ability at a subject - and in the case of maths exams, as Cows Go μ was discussing, it should be a measure of your problem solving ability. I don't feel maths students should be punished for having a hard time memorising, say, the Differential Chapman-Kolmogorov equations. Where's the harm in letting them scribble a few memos at the beginning of an exam?

As I repeatedly stated: Put them on the exam paper itself then. We got lots of equations put on our exam papers.

johnny-fatality

Faith wrote: »

Ooh, an anonymous classmate! Now I'm wondering who you are

Kind of disappointed with how easy the Forensic exam was (sounds weird I know).

All the past papers involved some bit of thought being put into the answers but these ones were simply asking you to regurgitate notes.

Faith

Parsley wrote: »

i'm only in forensic psychology, cos i'm doing chemistry with forensics. and i didn't go to any of the lectures so you'll never have met me at all!

Mysterious!

cookie_wolf wrote: »

It was all I really prepared for too. I attempted to prepare for the cognitive factors with sexual offenders, but that didn't go so well. Otherwise, I'm actually a forensic psychology major at my home school (I'm Erasmus) with a fair number of forensic classes under my belt so I went in hoping those classes would help me, if all else failed.

Then again I also figured, "Well, if I fail, I can retake it once I get home" which isn't the best way to approach a final, really.

Otherwise, I nearly hyperventilated at Learning & Behavior and for Health Psychology, I ranted on about sleep deprivation while suffering from serious sleep deprivation so god knows how that'll come out. I'm actually done all my finals now, since my other psych course was an essay and my Irish one was in March. That one went horribly...

johnny-fatality wrote: »

Kind of disappointed with how easy the Forensic exam was (sounds weird I know).

All the past papers involved some bit of thought being put into the answers but these ones were simply asking you to regurgitate notes.

Jaysus, there's loads of us here. Tyco building was horrible, wasn't it? It was a very straight forward exam. I was expecting a few law-focused questions. Glad I didn't look at that at all!

IHeartChemistry

Off topic here but who do I email for a missed exam? I read the timetable wrong and thought the exam was at 2 instead of half 9. Basic error but not good enough. Any help appreciated!

deisedude

IHeartChemistry wrote: »

Off topic here but who do I email for a missed exam? I read the timetable wrong and thought the exam was at 2 instead of half 9. Basic error but not good enough. Any help appreciated!

Go to the examinations and records office in the west wing. An email aint going to cut it trying to explain that i'd say

IHeartChemistry

deisedude wrote: »

Go to the examinations and records office in the west wing. An email aint going to cut it trying to explain that i'd say

Could I be prevented from sitting the August repeat?

Faith

IHeartChemistry wrote: »

Could I be prevented from sitting the August repeat?

I can't imagine you would be. A classmate of mine skipped an exam last year because of other commitments on the day, and she repeatedly in August just fine AFAIR. That being said though, I don't know if she informed the department ahead of time. You'll most likely be allowed to do the repeat, but you'll probably be capped at 40%.

closeline

IHeartChemistry wrote: »

Could I be prevented from sitting the August repeat?

Would they not just give 0% for this and allow you to do the repeats like normal.

KnifeWRENCH

IHeartChemistry wrote: »

Could I be prevented from sitting the August repeat?

No, they won't forbid you from sitting the repeat. They'll cap your result at 40% (unless you give them a convincing argument not to) but you'll still be allowed do the exam.

Happened a guy in my course last year. Mixed up his days and missed an exam. He sat the repeat though and got into 4th year, albeit with his result capped.

IHeartChemistry

Thats grand then cos all I need is 30% to pass the exam (CM1000).

Now all I have to do is go down to the office and hope they'll be nice! The crying might help win over hearts!

Thanks!

Censorsh!t

Historical Geographies of the City for me today.

It didn't go too bad at all, I'm just worried about how hard it will be marked.

KnifeWRENCH

Advanced Quantum Mechanics - not as horrendously awful as I had expected! Still only got around 50% or so in it, but I don't think I failed. Yay!

ReacherCreature

HI3113 Hitler, Nazism, and the Second World War. The paper was always slightly predictable but this one was a bit of a bastárd. There seven questions instead of eight and eugenics was completely dropped - despite it featuring on the course, the exam papers and he told us it was coming up, well possibly. I finished a good question on how the war drove the Holocaust and the second on how unique the racial ideas were. All in all, was fine. Second question was a little rough, didn't get to finish the last line of the conclusion so a bit miffed over that.

Off until Monday, the Soviet Union in World Politics 1917-1991 then.

captainspeckle

ReacherCreature wrote: »

HI3113 Hitler, Nazism, and the Second World War. The paper was always slightly predictable but this one was a bit of a bastárd. There seven questions instead of eight and eugenics was completely dropped - despite it featuring on the course, the exam papers and he told us it was coming up, well possibly. I finished a good question on how the war drove the Holocaust and the second on how unique the racial ideas were. All in all, was fine. Second question was a little rough, didn't get to finish the last line of the conclusion so a bit miffed over that.

Off until Monday, the Soviet Union in World Politics 1917-1991 then.

I was sickened about the lack of eugenics related questions, but I just incorporated into the racial ideals question. Was definitely a much tougher exam than previous years and most of what he mention to "concentrate" on weren't heavily featured. Was tough, but not the worst I guess.

Parsley

So, CM3023. After one of our lecturers emailed us a couple days ago, reminding everyone that the best way to prepare is doing past papers and wishing us luck - he goes and puts a question on electronic excitation spectra where the question on ro-vibrational spectra has been for the last... forever. sound.

rest of the paper was grand though, and i gave that question a stab anyway. knew a little bit but hadn't prepared specifically for electronic transitions...

Banjo Fella

captainspeckle wrote: »

I was sickened about the lack of eugenics

This little out-of-context snippet from your post reminded me of my class' reaction to our second exam this year - Topics in Applied Maths. Never before had a group of people been so relieved to see tumour growth!

Byron85

Had my Perception and Memory exam for 2nd year psychology this morning. It went a lot better than expected and it helps that i've been studying for over a week for this one exam.

Somewhat related, but has anyone come across that tall, bald UCC security guard in the Neptune during the exams.? I was up in the balcony with two friends at 9.10 or so and I asked them very quietly where were they going to leave their bags when said security guard says rather ignorantly and abruptly "STOP TALKING!". Now, I wouldn't mind if I was talking at my regular volume but I wasn't and he was pretty rude about it and on top of that, the bloody exams didn't even start for another 15 minutes and not everyone was even at their tables yet. The guy is obviously a failed Garda with an attitude problem, the bald prat.

ReacherCreature

captainspeckle wrote: »

I was sickened about the lack of eugenics related questions, but I just incorporated into the racial ideals question. Was definitely a much tougher exam than previous years and most of what he mention to "concentrate" on weren't heavily featured. Was tough, but not the worst I guess.

Eugenics is a dream question, I had good stuff prepared and I enjoyed it. Terrible for it not to come up. I did the same as yourself, incorporated it into the racial uniqueness. What was your other question?

Byron85 wrote: »

Somewhat related, but has anyone come across that tall, bald UCC security guard in the Neptune during the exams.? I was up in the balcony with two friends at 9.10 or so and I asked them very quietly where were they going to leave their bags when said security guard says rather ignorantly and abruptly "STOP TALKING!". Now, I wouldn't mind if I was talking at my regular volume but I wasn't and he was pretty rude about it and on top of that, the bloody exams didn't even start for another 15 minutes and not everyone was even at their tables yet. The guy is obviously a failed Garda with an attitude problem, the bald prat.

Massive d!ckhead syndrome. Not to worry, it's cripplingly common.

captainspeckle

ReacherCreature wrote: »

Eugenics is a dream question, I had good stuff prepared and I enjoyed it. Terrible for it not to come up. I did the same as yourself, incorporated it into the racial uniqueness. What was your other question?

I answered Q 7 on Hitler's involvement with the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust. Wasn't my greatest question ever, but hopefully it will suffice! That whole paper just caught me a bit off guard really. Met a good few of people afterwards who were equally unimpressed with the shake up in the paper. It's done now so best to concentrate on the next one!

x43r0

Professional Business Analyst Skills this morning. I nailed that exam to a cross and whipped it like it was claiming to be some kind of prophet

ReacherCreature

captainspeckle wrote: »

I answered Q 7 on Hitler's involvement with the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust. Wasn't my greatest question ever, but hopefully it will suffice! That whole paper just caught me a bit off guard really. Met a good few of people afterwards who were equally unimpressed with the shake up in the paper. It's done now so best to concentrate on the next one!

Oh good, glad we're all in the same boat. Not to carry out a stringent post-mortem of the exam but did you include the whole functionalist/intentionalist debate? I was going to include that question but the historiography put me off.

x43r0 wrote: »

Professional Business Analyst Skills this morning. I nailed that exam to a cross and whipped it like it was claiming to be some kind of prophet

That's ehm...descriptive.

captainspeckle

ReacherCreature wrote: »

Oh good, glad we're all in the same boat. Not to carry out a stringent post-mortem of the exam but did you include the whole functionalist/intentionalist debate? I was going to include that question but the historiography put me off.

Nope I didn't include it either, the historiography was something I didn't want to deal with either. After that horrendous 4,000 word essay on historiography earlier in the year I kind of had my fill of it for a while!

KnifeWRENCH

PY3105 - Condensed Matter Physics.

Not a nice paper. Q.3 was a complete balls - more chemistry than physics! And Q.2 wasn't nice because I always found the "chain of springs" thing hard.

That should have been an easy exam. But alas, no.

deisedude

I had Strategic Management and Marketing yesterday. Was absolutely wrecked after it, hadn't done a 3 hour exam in a while before that! Paper was grand, had been gunning for the 1H with that class but will be touch and go as to whether i get it now. Still cant really complain about it. Roll on the 25th for my final exam ever in UCC (*sob, sob):D

closeline

History Paper 1 and 2-First year. Ok.

kob29

ReacherCreature wrote: »

I was going to set up a thread actually. Nice one Wrench.

I had Gods and Heroes in the Ancient narrative (load of bollocks really).


Well jaysus you will be snapped up off the unemployment line with expertise like that

captainspeckle

kob29 wrote: »

Well jaysus you will be snapped up off the unemployment line with expertise like that

Don't be such a bollocks. What he studies or doesn't study has nothing to do with you. there is also a ferocious smell of troll off you.
:cool:

rebel girl 15

MS3005 went grand, got most of the first two questions and got one part of the third question, kinda of threw down anything I thought relevant for the others part - good start with my worst module being okay! Up again on Friday

sleepyescapade

E-Commerce Programming in the city hall. Unreal

Free again until Artificial Intelligence on Friday..eeeeek. (the worst).

ReacherCreature

HI30something or other today, Soviet Union in World Politics 1917-1991. The themes I had taken a gamble on and studied came up. Khrushchev's approach to foreign policy as well as Soviet military interventions in Eastern Europe and the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Khrushchev question was fine, I digressed a little with his track record pre-Cuba but it was a core element of his approach and how his policy disintegrated by 1962, I certainly hope my lecturer picks up on it.

Brezhnev and interventions were fine. Got it down but missed the last couple of my sentences of my conclusion so it feels terribly incomplete.

Off for another week, getting a little bit ridiculous by this stage - the length.

Papa_Lazarou

BC3001 today(structural biochemistry). Two nice general questions came up so pretty happy with it. One down of this 4 day grind

Censorsh!t

Critical Theory today.

It was pretty alright. One of my answers was a bit dodgy though. So much information not enough time to write it all down and no structure to it at all.


Scrrrreewweed for Contemporary Studies of the European Union tomorrow