Well, I’m able to laugh at myself here, but I still need a little attitude adjustment.
I studied differently for my second chemistry exam after getting an 84 on the first one. Knowing the questions are ripped from the homework, and that time was my big problem on the first test, I simply did all the homework problems (and the “extra” ones recommended on the course bulletin board) about 4-6 times each. It worked like a charm. Several of the questions on this test were IDENTICAL to the homework. I even recognized the answers for some of them, because the values weren’t changed. I sailed through and had almost half an hour left over to check my answers and make sure I had shown my work in a vibrantly clear. One answer looked funny (magnitude looked to be off by a factor of 3), but I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Still, I left feeling pretty darn happy.
I wasn’t expecting my grades until after spring break, but at class the instructor announced that they were posted. They ranged from a low of 5 points to a high of 110. After class I practically raced back to my office to sign in online and check my grade.
I got 100 points.
I should be jumping up and down, right? But I’ve just GOTTA know (and won’t, probably, until next week) which ten points I left on the table.
This way lies madness, I know it. And I’m not disappointed in myself. I don’t think if I’d studied harder or differently I’d have done better. I probably made a couple of stupid mistakes, which I could well afford, and that’s life. But I’ve just gotta know! And I’ll be really annoyed when I find out.
I really need to learn to do happy dances over grades like this.
LOL Same…I totally know what you mean. I felt the exact same way about my last Chem quiz and missed 3 points so I got 27/30. On top of it, I’m in an honors section so like nobody gets below a B on anything! Usually I find out that I made the absolutely stupidest mistakes like my sig figs were off. That was my biggest issue in G. Chem 1.
On that quiz it turned out that my “stupid” mistakes were:
1. Write the formula for the conjugate acid of the following,
HS- Well to do this all you have to do is add in an H, I soo know this yet what did I write?? H2SO! Argh! That was one point.
2. Circle the acid w/ the greatest strength compared to the rest…we were given 4 choices with Ka and Kb values ranging from 10^-10 to 10^-2. Well on this one I just glossed over it I think cuz I sure know that the greater the strength the larger the Ka will be, yet I chose the one with the smaller Ka value. That was 2 points.
Our questions don’t come directly from homework, but he does sometimes take stuff from the “extra” problems or from past quizzes/exams and other teachers quizzes/exams
(which we can access through the internet).
It is sooo frustrating to make dumb mistakes, and yes we are most definitely perfectionists…which is a good thing because we will have the life and death of human beings in our hands in the future, but is also a bad thing because we’ve been forced by med school gpa standards to go for every single point in every single subject or risk not getting in. It’s a shame to forced to be so number conscious.
–Jessica, UCCS
Bwaah-hah-hah!
The joke’s on me. The highest score the grading system will show (and the highest the instructor give credit for) is a 100. I didn’t get a 110, but I got a 107. I got the magnitude wrong on the “bonus” problem.
The happy dance is really revving up into overdrive now.
LOL. Well in that case. WTG Samene! 