Not! Enough! Time! Damnit!

[baratron]

I wish this was an April Fools' Day joke, but no... my first exam is in 7 weeks. Really glad I'm going to see my counsellor at college tomorrow because I am unbelievably stressed out. I'm sitting here trying to revise with chaos theory butterflies flapping away in my stomach, making me feel like I'm going to throw up. And this is only going to get worse as the exams get closer, and I'm already on pretty high-powered anti-anxiety meds. Argh.

I'm experimenting with study cards - the type where you write a phrase on one side and the definition on the back. Don't know how well they're going to work for me, but at least they're portable - hole punched through them and a metal ring keeps them together. Some of the things I need to revise don't seem to fit them too well, though - it feels kinda weird to write "Transition state" on one side and "Cyclic and highly ordered" on the reverse (that being the nature of the transition state in a pericyclic reaction). Am presuming that if I'm having fun writing on the cards, that has to be worth something... but I don't know. Worry. Angst.

Back in Ye Olde Days (GCSE, A-level) I learned by copying out all my notes. It's a bad way for people-in-general to try revising, as it only works for ~10% of people, but I'm one of the ones it works for. The problem is, I lack enough time to re-write EVERYTHING. Even considering that I'm triaging the situation by only attempting to learn the material that I understand, there is too much of it. I realised incredibly belatedly (i.e. this week) that I only need to write down the things I don't already know...The mistake I made when I was at university before is that I've tried to make a complete set of notes full stop, rather than only copying out what I don't know. Hrm.

I feel sick.

Comments

[ludy]

*hugs*

[nitoda]

hope the counsellor is useful - is there any chance of an alternative form of assessment that would stress you less? On DDA grounds even?

[barakta]

I'd concur on "alternative" assessment options, one of my colleagues does it for his students all the time.

They're not supposed to test your ability to do a 3 hour exam, it's what's on the exam which counts which could be tested in a variety of ways that aren't "exam"...

If alt assessment isn't an option, do keep touch with the counselling team, ours are excellent and well aware of exam stresses and anxieties and good support stuffs.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a possibility. It's been hard enough to get a "late" start arranged for the morning exams. And "late" appears to mean starting at 11 am, which means getting the 10.06 am train at the latest, and getting up by 9.30 am at the latest. Which if I haven't fallen asleep until 5 am because I'm so stressed I can't sleep is not flippin' funny. I really thought that all the exams would be in the evenings the same as the lessons are.

I understand that they have regulations, and that if I had a genuine late start that would mean either that I could possibly be told what the questions were by someone else who'd already sat the exam, or setting a different exam paper just for me. Except... this doesn't take into account the kind of student I am. My coursework grades and contributions to class should show that I don't need to cheat. And I'm doing this course because I feel I need to rather than because they feel I need to - they'd have happily taken me on to do a PhD last year. Why on earth would I try to cheat? And who on earth would be persuaded to tell me the questions anyway, considering that everyone else in my class is doing it as part of a first degree, and so their grades really matter? No amount of money could persuade someone to tell me what's on the paper so that I ace the exam and make their marks look poorer by comparison...

Sometimes rules just suck.

Cards

[turkish-coffee.livejournal.com]

Cards are one of those things that will either work really well for you or not. It is worth trying though, unless you know for a fact they won't work.