FINALS!!! Arrrrggggghhhh (1 Viewer)

[Chuck C]

Allow me to vent. I have six, count em, 6 two hour finals starting tomorrow and lasting until wednesday. GRRRRRRRRR Pray for me.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Chuck, speaking as a professor, I can assure you we look forward to marking exam work with about equal enthusiasm.

 

[Paul_D]

Andrew, professor of what, and which uni?

 

[Chuck C]

ha! then why bother with finals?

 

[Morgan Jolley]

You only have 6? Granted I'm in High School, but I still get 7. This year I get them for....

French 3 Honors

English 2

Advanced Algebra Honors

Biology Honors

World Cultures

Television Production

Introduction to Programming/Pascal

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Morgan Jolley

You only have 6? Granted I'm in High School, but I still get 7. This year I get them for....

A college final is the equivalent of about three or four finals in High School. Believe it or not, things get harder exponential-like as you go up in the education ladder. High School was harder than shit compared to Junior High. But when you get to undergrad college, the stuff is eight times as hard as High School. Then you think, "Well, can't get any worse than that." But then comes Grad School or Professional school, and you'll learn very quickly that undergrad was a joke.
Chuck C, I sympathize with you, but to be honest, what the hell were you smoking when you decided to take six classes?
But hey, look at it this way, the alcohol and if you're lucky, the sex will be that much more rewarding after a stressful week.

 

[Dustin B]

How did you end up with 6 in 4 days? Are you in some professional college. Worst I've ever had was two in one day then a third a day later with two more that were spread out around these three. The exam schedule where I go (I suppose it's went now, wrote the last one today) to school is spread out over 3/4 of a month and almost always you have at least a day between each exam and often several days.
And as hard as they are to study for and write, I do pity most of the professors who have to mark them much worse than writing them.

 

[teapot2001]

The worst I had were 3 finals on the Monday of finals week.

A college final is the equivalent of about three or four finals in High School.

Not always. I had a couple that were easier than some of the easiest ones I had in high school.

~T

 

[Paul_Fisher]

I have three finals in 24 hours next week. I'm mad but there is nothing I can do about. Life goes on...

 

[Chuck C]

what the hell were you smoking when you decided to take six classes?

beats me :frowning:
again, my heart goes out to all those who are in the same boat.

 

[Mike Voigt]

Worst I had was an open-book, open-notes, no-partners, unlimited time, take-home, on-your-honor exam.

Took 13.5 hours.

Fun stuff. Really. Thermal.

Mike

P.S.: If you broke the honor code, you usually got kicked out of school; happened to some folks, though not in that class.

 

[Julian Reville]

Fifteen years after my last final , I still have the occasional nightmare where I dream I have forgotten to study for (Organic Chemistry, Neuroanatomy, Companion Animal Medicine, pick one) and the final is in 15 minutes. Wake up in a panic.
It never goes away.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Fifteen years after my last final , I still have the occasional nightmare where I dream I have forgotten to study for (Organic Chemistry, Neuroanatomy, Companion Animal Medicine, pick one) and the final is in 15 minutes. Wake up in a panic.

Shudder

 

[CharlesD]

Ha!
I enjoy your suffering Just think once you graduate there's a good chance you will spend 8 hours a day in a Sensory Depravation Chamber ...er... "cube" working for The Man Actually my cube as a window so I am lucky.
I do still sometimes have the "The final is in 15 minutes and I forgot to go to class all smester dream" too. Even worse is the "forced to go back to High School dream" now that one is REALLY scary!

 

[Nate Anderson]

I enjoy your suffering Just think once you graduate there's a good chance you will spend 8 hours a day in a Sensory Depravation Chamber ...er... "cube" working for The Man Actually my cube as a window so I am lucky.

I generally refer to this as my "inevitable cubicle doom"

 

[andrew markworthy]

I don't want to start a 'you American students have it easy' topic, but you American students have it easy.

In Brit universities, exams are almost always compacted into a one or two week period. At Oxford, where I went, your finals (which were your *sole* assessment other than some basic exams after two terms - so in other words, your degree class and future rested on them) were taken in one week. 8 three-hour exams (all essays, no multiple choice, and all closed book). I had five in three days (boy, that was fun). Oxford being Oxford, you also had to do them whilst wearing a particular outfit. For men, this was a black gown, dark suit, white shirt and white boy tie. If you weren't wearing this outfit, you were refused entry to the exam hall (and I swear I am *not* making this up). Women had a similar dress code, but I remember one woman in my year who subverted it. At our first exam, she turned up in a black micro-mini, black stockings (tops and garter belt clearly visible under the bottom of the skirt), white transparent blouse and obviously nothing underneath. A friend sitting next to me in the exam hall gave this strangled cry as she walked past - he'd sucked so hard on the end of his ballpoint pen, he'd sucked the ink out. I was above such things - it's mere coincidence that I produced my worst paper of my finals that day.

Generally, Brit universities have moved over to a modular system, and work is examined at the end of the semester in which it's completed, so 'finals' in the sense of not being examined until the end of the year has largely disappeared now. However, exams are nearly always concentrated into one week (usually two weeks after the end of teaching) and as students take four modules per semester, that's up to four exams per semester they can look forward to.

 

[Joseph S]

I don't want to start a 'you American students have it easy' topic, but you American students have it easy.
...
Generally, Brit universities have moved over to a modular system, and work is examined at the end of the semester in which it's completed, so 'finals' in the sense of not being examined until the end of the year has largely disappeared now. However, exams are nearly always concentrated into one week (usually two weeks after the end of teaching) and as students take four modules per semester, that's up to four exams per semester they can look forward to.

Outside of the goofy attire requirements, I'm not seeing much of a difference here. Finals have almost always composed a great deal of my ultimate grade ranging from 33% to 100%. I've been through the two main methods of exam structure and find they both have major flaws. I've also had the "final only" grade situation and actually found that to be easier, because the detail comes in the initial exams. On a one exam course, they don't have anywhere near the time to test you on all the minutiae you would need to learn for 4 separate exams with the 4th covering part 4 and cumulative info. Three hours of exam time simply cannot equate to what they can test you on in 9-11 hours of exam time.
Two main types of exam schedules:
Blocks:
Exams in all subjects spread over 2-4 days and given every 4-5 weeks with cumulative final. Exams include Gross and/or Microscopic lab exams plus written Multi-choice and/or Essay exams.
Flaws: Overloaded the entire week with perhaps 8 hours total sleep. Following 1.5 weeks spent crashing from the prior week of hell instead of learning new material. MC exams allow for zero explanation and wording often leads to misinterpretation of either choices or the question. MC choices are often filled with info not part of the course material and thus difficult to rule out. Questions tend to be of the form, "Which of the following is not true." This can be extremely tricky when scientific info you have no way of knowing is listed in the choices. Basically you have to know all the course and book material by heart just to rule out the answer choice that is incorrect. This is why I love essay exams that allow me to explain my answer and provide details.
Exams given by Departments at differing intervals:
Same 3 exams plus cum final, however the departments schedule exams such that there are usually no more than 2 per week. Cum finals given over 2-5 day period anywhere from 7AM to 9PM, luck of the draw on scheduling. Taking a night exam followed by an early morning exam, when you are not sleeping much to begin with, leads to "problems."
Flaws: Since exams are given almost every week students tend to cram from one subject to another and spend 2 weeks with next to no study time on the subject following exam. School work continues during exams and you tend to have busy work, essays, etc. due around every exam. Finals are equivalent to the Block schedule.
Overall, I find that grade school -> high school schedules equate to better learning. You are exposed to all subjects 5 days a week and there is no way to put off one to study for another. You need to balance your school schedule and extra-curricular activities to meet a very demanding pace. (*Of course, this depends entirely on student's interest in learning at this age)

 

[Mike Voigt]

Andrew,
almost none of my finals were open-book. That one was very much the exception. And mostly because the level of knowledge being tested was application, not memorization. Our prof, Dr. Chapman (awesome fellow, too, loved his courses!), insisted that we know how to resolve thermal problems, not memorize large batches of equations.
They were also of the 3-hour variety. No dress code (that story of yours is hilarious! ); honor system. Almost always essay, few multiple-choice (Psych 101 was, some Chemistry 101 stuff). Had one lady take her exam in the buff... interesting. No, it was not AbPsych. But it was Humanities.
Most courses added mid-terms; the two tests together added up to 70-80% of final grade, with weekly 10-minute quizzes often making up the remainder, or labs. Sometimes, just the two tests, then it was 40/60 or 50/50. If either of the latter, they were 3-hour exams also.
Btw, my university (Rice U., Houston), required people to take courses out of their specialization, 24 hours out of 128. For me, (ME) that meant Psych, Economics, German, History, etc. Excellent idea, IMHO.
Mike

 

[Chuck C]

When you say Americans have it easy, I believe you're referring to the "liberal" education most schools (including my own) instill. We have two 15 week semesters with finals given on the 16th and 32nd week of each semester. Other schools use 10-week quarters (the fourth quarter is during summer). To define what it means to get a liberal education, I'd like to quote some exerpts from our school's Plan for a Liberal Education:



So in other words, a large percentage of my education is devoted to an area outside my major. When the surveys come flying around class asking if the 4 goals for a liberal education have been met, I say yes, I have learned a great deal from them.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

andrew markworthy

not memorize large batches of equations.

I wish I didn't have to memorize large batches of equations for tests. :frowning: