Test One Done

I didn't blog about last week's class because it was pretty uneventful. The only noteworthy item was that we were assigned to read chapters 3 and 10, do the chapter review questions, do a cumulative review and online practice test and finish up by completing last weeks lab homework and and next weeks pre-lab questions. Then, first thing next week would have a test over all of that. What? We aren't going to go over this stuff, just test on it? No problem.

All that sounded bad and it definitely took a long time to get it all done. But really, it turned out all right in the end. I got an email mid-week that the test would be at the last part of class with a review first. That helps, but the concepts were still a bit tough. I felt like the textbook did a terrible job of explaining things. But I did everything I was told and then some to be as prepared as possible.

We got the lab out of the way first thing Saturday morning and ended up with a relatively lengthy review before the test. Fortunately, very few of those "tough concepts" would be on the test. It was mostly math. I knew how to do all the math stuff, but quite often I made mistakes (some stupid, some I just didn't know) with significant figures. I knew the formulas and some of the important conversion factors just from doing a thousand practice problems. In fact, the teacher said no one would get a perfect score but it was easy enough that we should do well. That's encouraging, not really. Keep in mind that my teacher does not teach the textbook or the power point slides. He does it his own way. That may be all well and good, but he doesn't write the tests. Another teacher who happens to like the textbook writes the tests.

It took about 5 problems in to the test before my brain really started working. I was more nervous than I usually am before a test. I just hate chemistry. I did all the problems once through and then went back and did each problem a second time. One major complaint was that there was stuff on there that was never mentioned in class. Is brass a mixture or a compound? What is tungsten? (other than that it coats light bulbs, I have no idea) When converting a height of 5.0 feet, 6.5 inches to meters, how many significant figures are there? When I asked for a better explanation of some of this, my teacher smiled and said, "No comment." Um, wait a minute. It's your fault that this stuff wasn't covered in class and is now being thrown at us for the first time on this test, but all you can say is, "No comment"? I got pretty mad and it took me a few minutes to be able to focus on the test again. I did my best to answer everything and ended up being one of the last to turn in the test and I got the heck out of there.

My grades were posted online yesterday. I'm almost embarrassed to admit I got 100%. After all that complaining and anger I got them all right. I guess I'll shut my mouth. But I will say that one of the main reasons I got the 100% is because I made a ton of mistakes on my homework. I learned how to be really careful and a lot of my mistakes exposed areas that I just didn't understand and was able to correct. I guess homework really does serve a purpose.