SFSU Genetics Exam 1 Results

Alright.  So I took my first real science exam for the first time in three semesters.  I've had my time away from the sciences, and been getting perspective from my time in psychology.  How did I do now that I'm dipping back in it?

Well, first gotta re-explain the way the exam turned out.  It was all short answers, and I wrote down answers for all the questions, but I didn't write out full explanations like I wanted.  I was constantly writing the entire time with one a few minutes to pause and think.

Then after we were done with the exam, we got an email from the teacher saying that many students were complaining that there wasn't enough time to take the exam.  She decided to drop the score from 100 to 80, and give an an additional quiz worth 20 points plus 5 extra credit.

So how did I do?  78 on the exam, 20 on the quiz, and 2 extra credit.  100/100!  That's both an exclamation both of woo! and aww!  

Woo! in terms of getting 100/100 of course.  I have an A.  An A+ actually.  That's a nice thing to see.  I aced the adjusted score that the teacher felt was fair.  And my final grade is what the admissions committees are going to see.

However... this isn't just about grades. I have to be in the mindset of performing well in pharmacy school, and not just about getting to pharmacy school.  I got 100/100 on paper. I got 100/125 in reality, and I could have done better. I was afraid I was going in overconfident to the exam, and I was.  Regardless of what the teacher ended up doing with the score, I know I could have done better. I know I could have studied harder.  I know that the preparation I did was not good enough for pharmacy school.

I'm not ready yet. That may be a little unfair, because on one hand, I only have 6 units, so it seems like I should have plenty of time to study. But on the other hand, I only have 6 units, so there's no urgency pushing me to study harder. That's something I'll have to test out when I retake some classes, and I try to overload my schedule. That'll be a better glimpse at how my performance might be in pharmacy school.

But until then, I can be satisfied with my score, and I can take it as a positive that I feel like I should have done better. That I was right that I was being overconfident, which should help me study better.  So we'll see how it goes next exam which comes on April 9th. Til then I have a psychology research group project, and a genetics research paper to work on.