Friday, December 10, 2010

Waiting is the worst part

The hallway outside the dissection rooms were packed with anxious students. I wasn't as nervous as I usually am before these kinds of exams, more focused and just wanted to go in there and preform.



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The waiting is the worst part and it's interesting to see how different people cope with stress. Some persons do crazy revision, some sits down on the floor just quietly drowning in nervousness, some guys are jumping around joking and some just try to block everything out with music.
There are some things that I really don't like to do and some things that I have to do before a big exam, this is my protocol:

- I never study on the day of the exam. I don't believe in last minute learning.
- I try not to discuss the exam material before the exam.
- I need at least 8 hours of good sleep to get all the information straight.
- I need a good breakfast.
- I try to drink or eat something rich in sugar right before the exam starts.
- Being nervous is fine, to a certain level. I always try to calm down and even if I'm not
I always put on a calm mask during oral exams.

The first names started to get called out and after 5 minutes the first two guys came out, with smiles on their lips. Facial expressions are the best way of telling if a person passed or not.
Over all the exam seemed to be easy and I confirmed that just minutes later. I was called in and had to sit down and watch my colleague being examined by the head of the Anatomy department Professor Grím. This is where my pulse went up. My exam started off on the anterior compartment of the upper limb and I got approximately ten questions.
It was amazingly easy and I feel a bit disappointed, not only because I screwed up one of the questions but because I wanted to be examined on all of my knowledge. I guess it's supposed to be an introduction because I doubt that the finals are going to be this comfortable. Of course I am glad for passing but the thing is that I was so prepared and I really wanted to get my knowledge confirmed. I still don't have the answer to the question: "do I know enough?"


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3 comments:

  1. A nice pun :) You write, "how different people coop with stress"... Most likely you wanted to say "cope with stress" but, in fact, people also need to "cooperate" with stress because it won't leave them during the exam, so it's better to become friends with stress in advance & coop :)

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  2. I do mean cope. I tend to learn something new everyday which is a great thing. Thanks for the comment; your sentence there pretty much described my thoughts :)
    I'd rather coop with stress than just cope with it.

    /Tom

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