Exams and all

Lots of blogs, or rather their lovely authors, are caught up in the joy that is exams, or assessments. (As an aside why do they totally change the lingo for the BVC? Exams become assessments, tutorials are small group sessions or SGSs, ditto lectures...does a rose by any other not involve exactly the same amount of preparation/boredom...?).

Reading these, particularly Swiss Tony and Android (and indeed the devotedly absent for revision, Legal Lass!), has had me thinking about my examination experiences. I say it's had me thinking, but breaking out in cold sweats and tossing and turning through the night would be more apt.

My experiences have, as I imagine is common, been a mixed bag. I am by nature, more of an 'exam' person than an 'essay' person for two reasons. I have issues streamlining all the craziness and confusion in my head onto paper when I have what seems like vast swathes of time ahead of me. In an exam there's only so much time for loopiness to spill out on the 'copie'. Secondly, I'm a bit of a lazy bugger so urgent cramming at the end of the year much more suits my style than working continuously all year.

However, until last year I've always found that I did better when I didn't really care for the subject much. If I found it interesting, I tended to ignore the basics and go for those flighty, pretty, interesting peripheral areas of interest. Case in point, my first year at uni I studied Constitutional and Administrative law. Now, I do heart the Public law. Grand themes, ideas, philosophy, history, and above all you can legitimately be totally cynical about government and power. I remember reading lots of things, that weren't at all on the reading list (I may have lost my reading lists quite early on anyway, organisation never a strong point niver) and trotted it all out joyfully in the exam. And as for my dissertation, I planned to wow my examiner with a thoughtful redaction of a new theory of constitutional law.

Only two problems with this. The stuff I wrote in the exam was obviously completely irrelevant and ignored what the question was actually after. As for the essay...well it seems dear old Kelsen might have gotten there first, and in significantly better style. Apparently a Virgina Woolf stylee stream of consciousness was not what the professors at my uni were looking for.

Fast forward to the third year, (skipping over the general disaster that was my second year where I managed to miss all the exams for medical reasons and had the joy of waiting all summer to sit them in September- not an experience to be recommended).
Now, I had a dissertation on human rights, and a module in International Law. I heart the human rights and the UN, and all things to do with how people should be nice to each other, and high flighty ideas about statehood. Ringing any bells?

I didn't pay much attention to the reading list, and followed my interests, getting quite into the subjects. I may have actually *gasps of shock and awe* enjoyed a few moments of my third year as a result. But don't tell anyone.

So fast forward again to the examination, and in an experience frighteningly similar to the first year, the exam was actually...ok. It verged on enjoyable. My ideas flowed, and I couldn't write fast enough. I had an argument in response to each question, and I thought I was able to use my wider reading to good use.

I leave the exam room, chatting with others (always a bad idea). 15 minutes later I realise several things. First, there are a lot of people in tears. There is talk of complaints to the examiners that subjects covered in the exam were not represented by the syllabus, or indeed any published materials. Which makes it difficult for a poor undergraduate. Secondly, people were talking about things in questions that I had TOTALLY missed, and I had seen completely different issues in the problem question. Thirdly, and most stomach-lurchingly, that was exactly what had happened in my first year exam.

So you can assume I was a little bit worried come results day. My first year enthusiasm and interest in Public law resulted in that being my lowest mark of my degree. Amazingly, and I still think to this day that it was a typo, I did rather well in the international law exam. In fact higher than I had ever done on an exam, or in any assessed essay.

So what do I take from this? A couple of things. First, that it's always a bad idea to do a postmortem of the exam with other people because it only makes you feel bad. Second, that you never know how an exam really went (ditto interviews) unless it's something like you left half way through. Finally, I think I actually might have learned something on my degree if I could write well enough to get my ideas across this time!

What I haven't learned however is how not to break down into a complete panic crazed, sniveling wreck the night before an exam. Or for the entire two months of revision period/exams. The Boy (I often meet in bars) will attest to the many phone calls at all times of day and night that ran along the lines of:

'I can't possibly do the exam I can't I will fail I don't know anything I haven't done any work it's so awful I wish I had worked harder why didn't I work harder Oh My God my whole future lies in the balance and I didn't do any work and now I only have myself to blame because I will go in and I won't know anything and I won't be able to answer anything and it'll be awful and I'll I won't get my degree and then I won't get a job and then I will have to work in a shop for ever and that will make me depressed and I'll get sacked because I hate working in retail and I won't be very good at it because it won't be interesting and then I'll get fat and I'll be unemployed and have no money or self respect because I'm too lazy and I'll have to live at home for ever and my parents will be so upset that I'm a failure and it's my fault I didn't work harder but now it's too late because I can't learn EU in 3 hours and my life is over because waaaaaaa'

That's the abridged version. Clarity of thought was not aided by the mountains of caffeine, lack of sleep, exercise, daylight, and failure to consume anything that wasn't made primarily out of chocolate, cheese, or biscuit. I'm surprised Boy is still around.

Oh dear. I hope everyone else has some better coping strategies!