am I weird?

[baratron]

Is it normal that having been worried sick about my exams before taking them, I'm now worried about the three exams I've taken because I've definitely passed them all with good grades and "what if everyone's got 80%+ in them?". What if the exam was too easy so my high grade doesn't mean anything?

Still have two more exams to do, one on Thursday and one next Monday. Am worried about the one on Thursday because it's the most difficult course of all (Biological Chemistry II, five page mechanisms of doom). Not so worried about the one next Monday because it "only" requires that I learn everything, I already understand it quite well.

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> am I weird?

That is a rhetorical question, right?

[barakta]

No I think it's all normal "exam anxiety" and in your case If the exam turns out not to be as bad as you fear you're worried about your perception of the exam and that your good grade == lower mark cos the paper's easy cos you can't possibly see that you might have done well.

In an ideal world with appropriate exam accommodations, support, sanity on your part and you using coping mechanisms exams would merely be (or mostly be) a test of your competence, not a test of your ability to not be scared/do exams...

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to have that worry, but I've failed to worry sometimes when I should have! *hugs* on further exams. When do you get your results?

[mjl]

Well I'm not sure if that specific worry is normal, as I have some doubts as to whether it is normal to be getting 80-90% in those exams, but finding something to worry about in relation to exams even if they have gone well sounds pretty normal.

I'm afraid at some point, and maybe it won't be until some months after getting the results, you may actually have to come to terms with having done well. ;-P

Hope the difficult one on Thursday goes well too.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Well, you see, we had revision classes where the lecturer concerned went through past papers and explained very clearly what we needed to write to get the marks for each questions. I then memorised all the past paper questions and answers. If part a of a question, 5 marks, happened to be something I'd seen before, I wrote the perfect model answer out from memory to the best of my ability. Hence to me it seems to me that everyone who bothered to attend the revision session should be capable of getting a very high percentage.

But maybe other people are less good at identifying that the chemical on the 2009 paper is closely related to the chemical on the 2007 paper, so it's going to be the same mechanism? I don't know. I've just been surprised because I thought my memory had become atrocious since I've been depressed (I know it's nowhere near as good as the photographic memory I had when I was a teenager), and yet I've been able somehow to memorise sets of questions and answers without even really trying.

[nitoda]

You're only weird in the best of senses! :-)
Good luck with the remaining two exams ... and with the inevitable post-exam drop.

[turkish-coffee.livejournal.com]

You have percentile marking, then I guess. Where the top so many students get an "A" next so many get a "B", and so on.

Personally, I don't like that. It's what I call the Family Feud therom. Even though "Africa" isn't a country, if enough people think it is, it could be listed as one of the countries with a very warm climate in a survey.

So, regardless how everyone does, the best people get a good mark, and the worst people get a bad mark.

I prefer more absolute marking, where it's based on an abstract standard of "getting everything right is perfect".

Now, as for the freaking out, no, it's normal. I did it too (until I finished my exams, and they were only highschool!).

"Ohmygod! Is Maria Theresa going to be on the test? What if he asks about the second world war!? Do I need to know about Lord Admiral Nelson? Have I eaten today? What if my ceramics final breaks? Should I sleep now? No! I need to study for English-- What's even on the English final? Is it content based? Do I need to memorize literature? It is a world literature class...No I should just sleep. How am I supposed to sleep with all this stress!?"

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Percentile marking? No. Why do you think that?

It's more that I worry that I'll get an A but so will everyone else, so mine won't mean anything...

[turkish-coffee.livejournal.com]

But, if you get an A, then don't you get to keep your A?

I'm utterly confused.

More than usual, I mean.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if everyone gets an A, it doesn't show that you're awesome, even if you are. It means that the exam was too easy.

It should be that a few students get As, many get Bs, many get Cs, a few get Ds and a handful fail. The exam should be set at a difficulty level so that average students get the average mark.

Essentially, I'm worrying that it's not that I'm awesome, but that the exam was too easy. Does that help?

[turkish-coffee.livejournal.com]

Yes it does.

But, you are awesome, so if you happen to get an easy test for you then it was because you're too smart for it.