Took a double module today in Molecular Medicine.

I’d revised my arse off for the exam, on a mid 2:2. This exam could have helped take my mark up to a 2:1 if I nailed it or if I screwed it up properly dropped me enough marks that I’d be on a low 2:2. Perhaps even a third if I ganked my next double module.

I could answer practice questions off the top of my head. In the exam though, total brain freeze. Nothing…..couldn’t remember a thing. Not enough to even get 40 percent. So not wanting to end up with a shitty degree, I panicked and wiped what little answers I could summon at the end, so instead of getting a third for the module I decided to fail it and retake next year part time. I’d been working to bring my grades back up from my second year (shit) and had achieved a mix of firsts and 2:1’s.

So 1) Why the hell could I remember the relevant work before the exam? But not during? It was like complete amnesia.

2) What exactly should I do about whatever happened?

Go talk to your tutor and see what they say, might let you retake it in the summer.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Practice your exam technique, then practice it again, then practice it again.

Examinations are not only a test of your knowledge, but are a a test of your exam technique, so get good at it.

For about ten years after my finals I used to regularly have nightmares where I’d done zero revision and the exams were due to start the next day. 😯

I realise that for some stoodents this is reality 🙂

I had. I’ve spent the last two weeks not seeing the light of day. Did exactly the same as what I’d done previously to boost my marks.

Actually 4 weeks without seeing the light of day…. because there was no time between coursework deadlines and the start of exams.

Don’t worry about it, it happened all the time to me and I survived.

Anyway, better go, these bins won’t clean themselves.

If I end up in Tesco’s/Doing Bins I’m joining the Foreign Legion. If I’m going to screw my life up I’m going to do it properly.

Talk to your tutors, they’re not writing exams with the aim of tripping you up, they do really want you to succeed.
I had to bin an exam in the first 15mins due to brain fade and then take the resit, my tutor was very surprised as course work was awesome. That’s life, don’t worry too much about it until you’ve spoken to the staff.
Best of luck.

1) Why the hell could I remember the relevant work before the exam? But not during? It was like complete amnesia.

Last minute revision (if you do that) put pressure on yourself as you are trying to learn and to remember too much at the same time.

2) What exactly should I do about whatever happened?

Time management, eat properly (fish oil or eat oily fish) and have plenty of sleep.

My technique is to stop revising for an exam usually one day before the exam and not to think about it. But obviously this technique only if you have managed your time properly.

A binman in the Foreign Legion? Cool!

You know what I mean Crikey.

The problem with the exam was that, despite doing bits of revision, 3 hours per day for each module for 2/3 weeks. I had one day between this exam and the last one, crammed by answering practice questions to refresh everything in my head because the previous exam had pushed out a lot.

I don’t know, it’s like my brain decided the work was traumatic and decided to shut my access to it. 👿

I’m off to revise.

can you remember what the questions were?

were they representative of your course and you should have been able to answer them or did you have some surprises in terms of what you expected ?

I wouldn’t worry about the exam itself, sounds like you have deliberately set yourself up for a resit – sounds like you’re pretty worked up about it and maybe should talk to someone about that though.

In terms of what I’d do if I was at uni again, basically work moderately hard (say keep a strict 9-5, or even 10-5 or 9-4, make up for any time lost if you do end up doing stuff in the afternoons etc) the whole year rather than taking it easy until a week befor a deadline/exams then doing silly long hours working to complete stuff on time.

I wouldn’t worry though, even if you completely stuff up it’s not the be all and end all.

Some real surprises actually.

The practice questions we were given to revise, for the neuro section were very general. Questions along the lines of…. “Discuss the role of protein aggregates in neurodegenerative disease? Give an example of a disease to aid your discussion” Nice and general. As long as you’d learnt the basics and a disease, all was fine.

or “Discuss Alzheimers and it’s molecular parthenogenesis” Again nice and general.

The actual exam questions were more like.

“Discuss ApoE mutations in Alzheimers”. Not general. This is a tiny part of the overall picture in Alzheimers disease, I can’t write two or three **** pages on that.

What’s your base knowledge like? I think everyone can panic like this in exams, it’s all about finding a way of pulling back on the stick (so to speak) to settle things down. The most obvious way of doing this is having a strong base that you can retreat to, being confident on the fundamental theory. Drawback is you don’t get this overnight of course. Hope you get the exam sorted.

Good basic understanding.

For all but one of the questions basic understanding would get you zero marks, the rest were basically expecting you to go into a lot of detail on more minor points. For example for Alzheimers disease there are a few theories on the cause of the disease. I knew a good amount about all of them but not enough to answer a question on one in particular.

None of the questions gave any room to gain marks through basic understanding that you could fall back on.

1) Why the hell could I remember the relevant work before the exam? But not during? It was like complete amnesia.

Who knows. Exams are strange things. Maybe you revised well, but hadn’t done enough work during the rest of the year.

2) What exactly should I do about whatever happened?

Go and speak to your programme/degree leader (or whatever the equivalent at your uni is called). Check whether you’ll have a chance to resit, and ask what this will mean in terms of graduation. There could still be the possibility that if you’ve really screwed up you can drop out now, and repeat the final year. In some cases it is advantageous to do that now, rather than wait until all the marks have been finalised at the exam board and degrees awarded at the progression board.

It is also worth checking how degrees are worked out. It is common to use two methods:

1. The average of second year + third year (weighted 40:60)
2. The average of your third year.

Some institutions also take you best 120 credits (with x from the final year).

You might be in a better position the you think.

Discuss ApoE mutations in Alzheimers

They don’t want 2-3 pages on that tho, do they?

They want you to demonstrate that you can write about Alzheimers, about the history, about the current state of play, and then discuss the small amount of info available regarding ApoE mutations and how that fits in with the rest of the stuff.

It’s like being asked to do a question on the resurgance of the cyclo-cross bike. You don’t write about cyclo-cross bikes, you discuss the way cycling has become more popular, mountain biking, road biking and the cross over between the two.

It’s about fitting your knowledge into the question in a way that shows off what you know to the best of your ability.

You chose two questions out of 6 Crikey. Out of all of them I knew the most about Alzheimers.

The question did not ask you to discuss the history, clinical features, progression and other molecular pathways of parthenogenesis. If it had, it would have been worded differently. Such a question should have been worded something like “Discuss the current state of knowledge regarding Alzheimers disease, with particular reference to Apoe”

You’d end up writing three/four pages to include a third of a page on what we currently know about Apoe if one went down that route.

I had one exam the other day which was something along the lines of “Discus with reference to blood antigens, the processes involved in the donation and transfusion of red blood cells”. That question asked you to discuss history etc, the first doesn’t. The alzheimers questions main focus was Apoe despite it being about 10 percent of the overall picture of the disease.

It rattled me. If that was the case the question should have been worded better.

You need to look into exam technique. Are you a first year or are these your finals.

I used to find exams ok but then my secondary school made us sit exams in every subject at the end of each year as practice so we wouldn’t be nervous.

Look at the way you are revising and try and work out what questions are likely to com up and how you will answer them. I found that there were repeat patterns. I was principly a chemist but the idea was the same. Similar questions would come up but with slight variations. Examiners are lazy.

What worked for me was going into the exam. Turning over reading through each question jotting down a couple of notes and deciding what I could do best in. Then few deep breaths, relax, sip of water before launching in. If you panic then your mind will go blank.

Also if you know you need to answer 2 out of six question in the exam and the module consisted of 7 topic areas you don’t need to revise everything. I used to cherry pick topics. In my first year it was a dead cert that “Solve the Shroedinger equation for a hydrogen electron in a 1D potential well” would come up so I could do it blindfolded. In my biochemistry it was dead cert that there would be a question on photsynthesis and one on respiration. I knew the cycles, structures and enzymes by heart and could produce a diagram on demand (took weeks of redrawing to learn). Still that garanteed 50% of the marks if you could do that.

Learn from your mistakes and try and look to what positive changes you can make. I got a first but nearly failed my first year through laziness and a bit of arrogance.

You need to learn how to blag, my son. You need to be able to waffle in a way that doesn’t make it obvious, you need to be able to appear that you know what you’re on about.

Bullshit, basically.

The question did not ask you to discuss the history, clinical features, progression and other molecular pathways of parthenogenesis

But it also didn’t say ‘Don’t talk about anything else except ApoE mutations’….

Tell ’em a good story.

God **** damnit.

I did a foundation year as well.

Five **** years at uni here I come!

Think of the lady opportunity!

it was dead cert that there would be a question

I rolled that dice and got caught out…

I have a girlfriend, so no freshers for me!

I think I’ll just travel and come back for deadlines.

I’ve scuppered myself yet again by overthinking.

Do they have academic darwin awards?

Maybe I should try a psycho, blag dissociative amnesia due to exam induced chronic stress disorder. Go all Klinger on admin.

That man is going to take out the lower edge of his left eye socket and about 3 teeth. I looked after someone who made the same error with a shotgun, and in the time it took to reconstruct his face, he decided that he’d have been better off alive.

Practice and revision!

I hated exams. I now write exam questions. The irony is not lost on me.