School and Tests

I thought I would just post a bit of a rant about tests, namely midterm exams. As I am currently experiencing said phenomena this may be a bit biased or incorrect, however, at this point I am not sure if I could care less.

This term I am taking three classes: Introduction to the Evaluation of Argumentation(whew, that's a mouthful), Anthropology of Native North Americans, and History of the Middle East. In my anthro class we had our exam quite early about a week and a half before the rest which threw me for a loop since I normally tell my job that I cannot work so much the week before so that I can get my studying done. I can't really tell them that I need two week off to study, that's a bit unreasonable. So I just bucked up and studied for two weeks straight.

I did fairly well in my anthro exam, I would really like to know the curve though, he gave us our test back and didn't tell us what our final grades were. We have to wait for the end of the term to see how he curved it. That confuses me. I wish that he would just have given it to us and let us know how it would turn out so I don't need to worry.

I just took my History exam today, he gave us seven essay questions before hand to study although he didn't finish cover some of the materiel in lecture yet. Then he said he would give us 2 choices and we only had to pick one. Nice! although he said that Monday, 2 days ago he would cut one of the questions, luckily he cut the one he hadn't covered yet. But in the process of studying for these essay questions, we all forgot about the multiple choice part, especially the part from the book. AAAAH!!! Not sure quite how I did, but I think not too bad, plus, I think he curves as well. I just hope that some of the people in the class are as dumb as they seem to that the curve is very mobile.

What I really don't understand is the whole stress out the students atmosphere, some instructors want to frighten their students into doing well by saying outrageous things about the exams like "If you don't get this right I will probably just score you a zero" Which I have heard on a few tests. Crazy, because there are people who get test anxiety that leads them to get the easy questions wrong. Whatever!

I just want to say I am very proud of myself for my performance so far this year. Yes, it helps that I don't have that many distractions. I just hope that a certain some one reads this and lets me know they are alright!

Anyway, I'm off to hit the books again.