craziness momentarily over
i don't know why but i feel unbelieveably happy today.
greek and roman myth ezam - pice of cake. it did suck up some mol bio study time but i walked out the that exam. definitely got the best raw score on an exam in my college career. even better than my physio final!
then yesterday i took the exam which is undoubtedly the lowest raw score of my entire college career. i studied so hard. i not only memorized everything he ever wrote down in lecture. i could produce 5 weeks of notes from memory, i kid you not. so partI and partII went beautifully. i missed maybe 1 or 2 points out of the first 70. however, the last 30 points were "think" questions. and "think" actually means "impossible. 15 points APIECE. 2 questions, 3 points. that makes no sense. so the first one went a little something like this.
*don't read this unless you want to be deathly bored and confused*
e. coli infected with a lambda phage of strains m4 and deltaM. neither suceeded in killing the cells (as evidenced by no plaques). but when the phages were mixed together and then infect the e.coli they make 100 plaques. what cellular process allows the mixed genomes to kill the cells but not the strains individually?
continus on to make up hypothetical graphs or results for more lambda phage mutants and gives us maps of each phage genome, complete with were base substitutions and deletions are and asks us to explain every detail of the hypothetical graphs (of which there are three). turns out that each mutation kills more and more cells. why is this? i have no clue. i considered this answer for more than an hour. the kicker is the last part of that question: explain graphs b and c. in parentheses he puts: don't worry if you don't get this, it's extremely difficult but it's only worth 2 points.
needless to say, the second "think" question wasn't any better and involved us designing our OWN repair pathway for a G-C covalent bond.
i was close to tears at one point while thinking about these questions. i have never ever been more frustrated in my life. it's more annoying because it wasn't a matter of not knowing the material. it was a matter of not having any idea what cellular processes could make the problem work.
but for some reason i feel really fine today. maybe just because its over and hopefully the average is about a 50. he told us at the beginning that an 80 is an A so i can deal with a B on this exam. unfortunately if i don't start figuring out those think questions then i will be stuck with a B.
so today im thinking i have to learn my dance cause we have "polish" tomorrow at kieran's house and i totally don't know it yet. and i should go grocery shopping. just for fun im going to check my bank account and see when the last time was that i bought food. september 29th. haha, thank goodness for the case of ramen my made me bring. i guess i bought milk a few times for cereal though.
sorry for the hugely long post. im really sorry if you ignored my warning and read the test details. i have to decide on my classes for next semester cause my advising is on monday. i have to take quant lab and physical biochem but other than that i have no idea what to take. maybe french lit with my cinema prof cause i like him.
greek and roman myth ezam - pice of cake. it did suck up some mol bio study time but i walked out the that exam. definitely got the best raw score on an exam in my college career. even better than my physio final!
then yesterday i took the exam which is undoubtedly the lowest raw score of my entire college career. i studied so hard. i not only memorized everything he ever wrote down in lecture. i could produce 5 weeks of notes from memory, i kid you not. so partI and partII went beautifully. i missed maybe 1 or 2 points out of the first 70. however, the last 30 points were "think" questions. and "think" actually means "impossible. 15 points APIECE. 2 questions, 3 points. that makes no sense. so the first one went a little something like this.
*don't read this unless you want to be deathly bored and confused*
e. coli infected with a lambda phage of strains m4 and deltaM. neither suceeded in killing the cells (as evidenced by no plaques). but when the phages were mixed together and then infect the e.coli they make 100 plaques. what cellular process allows the mixed genomes to kill the cells but not the strains individually?
continus on to make up hypothetical graphs or results for more lambda phage mutants and gives us maps of each phage genome, complete with were base substitutions and deletions are and asks us to explain every detail of the hypothetical graphs (of which there are three). turns out that each mutation kills more and more cells. why is this? i have no clue. i considered this answer for more than an hour. the kicker is the last part of that question: explain graphs b and c. in parentheses he puts: don't worry if you don't get this, it's extremely difficult but it's only worth 2 points.
needless to say, the second "think" question wasn't any better and involved us designing our OWN repair pathway for a G-C covalent bond.
i was close to tears at one point while thinking about these questions. i have never ever been more frustrated in my life. it's more annoying because it wasn't a matter of not knowing the material. it was a matter of not having any idea what cellular processes could make the problem work.
but for some reason i feel really fine today. maybe just because its over and hopefully the average is about a 50. he told us at the beginning that an 80 is an A so i can deal with a B on this exam. unfortunately if i don't start figuring out those think questions then i will be stuck with a B.
so today im thinking i have to learn my dance cause we have "polish" tomorrow at kieran's house and i totally don't know it yet. and i should go grocery shopping. just for fun im going to check my bank account and see when the last time was that i bought food. september 29th. haha, thank goodness for the case of ramen my made me bring. i guess i bought milk a few times for cereal though.
sorry for the hugely long post. im really sorry if you ignored my warning and read the test details. i have to decide on my classes for next semester cause my advising is on monday. i have to take quant lab and physical biochem but other than that i have no idea what to take. maybe french lit with my cinema prof cause i like him.