It was actually close that I didn't even get to do it. For the first time since I started at Mittuniversitetet I forgot to sign up for a test in time, and as it so happens it was also the first time that signing up late wasn't possible, which is the way it will be from now on.
Instead I had to get there early to write my name on a list of people hoping for reserve spots. The official lists got put up 30 minutes before the test started but there was a list made by the other hopeful reserves when I got that. I was the sixth person to get there so sixth spot on the list, there had to be six empty chairs in the classrooms where the test took place for me to get a spot. Half an hour after the test had started we would get to know if we could get a spot. I sat down in a couch going through some stuff to remember which word meant what, many tricky words. The situation didn't get better after that the official list was put up and some douche (Yeah, I'll use that word.), decided to stick in between the names on the previous list and not just allow people to type the names over in the right order.
The test supervisors said that it looked grim from the start so people were quite nervous. I can only think of one test ever before that I have failed. And that was a test that I didn't care much about as it was late in the gymnasium and I was tired of studying and it wouldn't matter for my chances to get into the university.
But thankfully all eleven of us got in, even if one had to bring a table of his own, so I got to do the test. That I had missed half an hour didn't bother me much, three and a half hour is more than enough. The question was if I'd manage the test. I had studied as much as I usually do, meaning sitting with friends for 15 hours over three days doing old tests. I'm not a fan of course literature as it's quite expensive so I usually stick to the free methods of old tests and almost never skipping lectures.
The teachers had tried to say that this test was very hard whenever they got the chance so I think most students were stressed. When I did it I felt like I knew 50% of the answers to the questions with simple answers. 50% is also what's required to pass the test so that would be perfect. That some of them were yes or no questions meant 75% correct with average luck, not too bad.
The real trouble came with the questions that were 0-5 points and required reasoning. That's no weakness of mine, I'm good at writing stuff that either is or looks relevant. The main problem was that two of the five questions were written like "What does this book say about ...". As I hadn't read the books I had to take my chances and write what a book might be saying.
The three questions that weren't based on a book in that way felt better and after the test I felt like I had probably managed to get 35/60 or so. My goal is usually to pass the test without being close to an F so 35 would do just fine but of course I was still a bit nervous.
The teacher had said she would correct the tests over the weekend and that we'd have them on Monday. We got them on Tuesday, but one week later, meaning this week so I'm not overly impressed with her judgement of how much time it would take, neither were my classmates as we all really wanted to know if we'd have to redo the test in December or not.
The test went better than most people thought it would. That's pretty much always the case, so no surprise there. The surprise was how much better it went. I who expected 35 points got 49, one of my best results ever and while that was above average almost everyone got far better than they thought. On question 26 and 27 that were "What does this book say about that?" I got 2/5 on both and as I got 4/5, 5/5 and 5/5 on the remaining ones it was a very good result.
Some in my class are actually annoyed at how well it went due to having put too much work into passing the test and to some extent I agree. But I guess a strong finish is also quite nice. And most importantly: I don't have to worry about redoing the test. Instead I can focus on my very last task here, writing a scientific study, which is what I'm doing right now and will do for a month more. So far it's going alright, a bit of problems but nothing really troubling as long as we keep on working five days a week, as we do now.
B is actually the best grade I have ever gotten on a test. I have gotten A multiple times when it comes to the journalism part of the education tho, meaning writing articles and such. That is where I really care about the grade because there I wanna do my very best and get the top grade. The only test that annoyed me was the the linguistic correctness test last year that I only got a B on. My language is very correct so there I really wanted to do better but due to a bit of a misunderstanding of the rules I ended up with 43/50. The test was to read through a text and correct anything we found wrong. As we could get a maximum of 50 points I thought we were only allowed to mark 50 things. That wasn't the case, we could mark any amount and many people had marked around 70 things. Oh well, I'll just have to live with that B :)
Removed my examinaturs signature from the test frontpage to mage it anonymous, not that I dislike her or anything.
Also, happy international men's day!