I can never decide which is the worst part of taking a test: studying for it, actually taking it, or waiting for the results. Right now I’m firmly in the last camp, which is mostly because I just turned a take-home midterm in yesterday and now I get to marinate in fear for a week until they grade it.
Actually, I really like studying for tests, because I’m a complete nerd. It always seems like that’s the point when you pull everything together and start to understand it all within the context of everything you’ve learned. That’s when the aha moments come (those moments where, if you were in a bathtub, you would get out and run naked down the street), and those are the fun moments in learning.
I kind of enjoy taking tests, too. There’s a real adrenaline rush, and in smaller classes, those five minutes before the prof comes in with a big stack of recently photocopied paper is when the whole class bonds over their impending doom. And, when a test is going well there’s a real sense of success when you figure out a hard problem.
But I don’t know if there’s anything fun about waiting to get your grades back. Then you’re just sitting around, listening to what other people think they messed up and then trying to remember exactly what you wrote for that problem. Of course, if I were self-disciplined, I would do the smart thing and recognize that at this point, there’s nothing I can do about it now, and no reason to worry. But, alas, I have the self discipline of a wombat. What about you? What’s your (least) favorite part of exams? How much self discipline do you have?
