Ever study for a test only to find your mind blank once you read the first question? Now, this would not be an issue on a small quiz, but the exam I took the past week holds 35 percent of
my physics grade. What surprises me more is that we were allowed a formula sheet during this exam, and yet I completely forgot about its existence on my desk for the first question. A whole hour was spent creating my formula sheet, only for it to be forgotten within the first half hour, and looking at the clock certainly did not help my situation.
Your typical exam at Stevens began promptly at 5 p.m., and given that this was a physics exam, I knew that there would be in-depth questions that I would have to prepare for. After having written the pledge, the TA began the timer, and my self-confidence quickly faded away as I read the first question. A question with three parts is typical, but I had no idea what the last parts of the question meant.
This was not the first time where I got tricked by only the first question, as I have also been humbled greatly by the MA 126 final exam last semester. Any difference between the two exams would have to be with the answers that one can get. In a physics exam, the answer can vary from a small decimal to a large-scale number, which makes it difficult to trust my answer.
This was the case as I managed to answer the first question within twenty minutes, but I looked back at my numbers and realized that I forgot to convert them to the right units. I immediately felt relieved but also crushed about my work because it reassured my hesitation with my initial answer. This also came with the feeling of a crushing blow because this would mean that I would have to scrap most of my work and adjust all the answers to the problems’ subsequent parts.
I believe that the biggest stress factor in an exam is not the problem itself but it is the race against time. Throughout my erasing and rewriting of formulas on paper, I kept glancing at the clock to the point where time just began to tick faster. Fast forward to forty minutes into the exam period, and one student got up and turned in their test. Looking around, I did not see any other students submit their exams, but I thought that they must have finished and were just checking over their work. Now, when I looked back at my exam, I could only see less than half the questions done.
This tug of war between my test and time kept going until the last second of the period when most of the students remained in their seats. A total of roughly five students were able to submit their exams before the cut-off, but that is a small fraction of the total 70 students. That evening, I felt completely worn out, mostly because of how fast my mind began racing in those last few minutes of the exam. This felt like playing Minute to Win It, except the risk of losing money is replaced with an exam score that will plummet my GPA.
The following day, our professor asked the class about their thoughts on the exam, and it surprised me to find out that most had difficulty completing the exam on time as well. Usually, scenarios where the time given to complete an exam is overestimated, are very rare to happen. As the time given for the exam was not justly measured (given that this was a four-question exam), our professor offered revisions and half-credit back to ease our worries. This just goes to show that no matter what, there are times when physics laws can be broken.
