I’m sure there are some of you out there who share my sentiments regarding final exams. (“AHHHHH! AHHHH!” *stab stab stab, slow deep breaths* “AHHHH! AHHHH!”)
The story so far? AP Chem, Cisco Networking, CWLT, Physics. I pulled off the A in Cisco without much drama. Starting from a 93, I needed a 66 and got an 82.
Chem was a little more trying. In case you don’t know, Chem is split up into two classes, Lab and Lecture. Both are six-point ‘A’s. My Lab grade dropped to a maddening 87.87 just before winter break. (An ‘A’ is 88.) It now all depends on the very last lab we turned in, which has been hastily christened our lab exam. I had a B, 84, in Lecture little more than two weeks ago after being brought down by a 75 on a Thermochemistry exam. (An ‘A’ is an 85.) An 89 on the Equilibrium test pushed me back into ‘A’ range. (It helped even more when it mysteriously changed to a 91 earlier this week.) I needed a 79 on the exam to keep that ‘A’. I was a little worried the first half of the exam. I had only done 30 of 75 questions in 40 minutes. Sol’n? Skip to all non-calculation questions. It payed off: 86.8.
In Physics, a little miracle happened. And her name is Mary Kemp, hereafter known as Saint Kemp. While during winter break, I had an ‘A’ in Physics and a ‘B’ in Chem, I now had a ‘B’ in Physics and an ‘A’ in Chem. I was just a fraction short of the 85% A walking into the exam yesterday. I needed an 88.76 on the 20% exam to claw my way back to the ‘A’.
But no. 80.00. The conservative forces were out to get me. (By “conservative forces”, I mean things like applied force or tension, not the GOP or Culture Campaign.) This makes for a ultimate grade of 84.06. I was somewhat inconsolable during the CWLT exam after finding out. It was not until noon today when I saw what Kemp had done. By adjusting the percent that the exam counted in comparison to the semester grade (among other things), the ultimate grade was the just-barely ‘A’ that the good Saint had the mercy and benevolence to grace me with.
I still have no chance of being valedictorian but still, it’s nice to have a respectable class rank. Preferably something under 30 this semester.
The CWLT exam was like most other Venegoni[1] tests. I usually do better than I expect on them. Usually, I only miss about 25-30 questions of the standard 80-question test. Today’s exam is 20% of our final grade, but I’m much more concerned about the essay due at 3PM on Friday that commands 15% of our final grade. I really should have gotten a lot done yesterday, but I got pulled into the Wikipedia Vortex for about nine hours. I know. I know. This procrastination helps no one but the Scholastic Bowl Team.
^ Note that this particular usage of the word “Venegoni” refers not to the actual person but is an adjective that refers to the emotional and logistical consequences of his class: namely, the paranoia and distress his class creates along with the few fleeting moments of free time in which to worry about it.
Uhm, you have a 3,000 word essay due tomorrow and you write a new post??
Hate to break it to you, but there were 100 questions on that “80 question test.” Good luck!
Quite. I found that the Quilt final was exponentially harder this time around. It seemed that I narrowed down every single question to two answers & then I picked the one which I thought had a better cut of its jib (whatever a jib is). So I’m quite paranoid about my Quilt final grade… I hate having 50% of our grade just floating up in the air & the fact I don’t know what the first 50% of my grade is in the first place!
Well as the vice president of the people’s republic of the glorious Scholastic Bowl Comradeship I commend your procrastination. All we need to do now is hook you up to an intravenous sucrose mix and pit you against Evan (that crazy guy from Rolling Meadows)
NO!
No way in hell am I using a sucrose IV. It has to be glucose water or I’ll embolize and die.
damn, my ridiculously complex plot to kill tommy has failed!