Finals

I always get pretty excited this time of the year. Maybe "excited" isn't the right word. In any case, I always feel a lot of emotion. Christmas is coming and it's the end of a semester (only three more to go, plus spring and summer terms--and then more schooling. Sometimes it feels like school will never stop.) With the end of the semester always comes the finals. I don't like finals. I actually don't like big tests. I think I would like schooling much better if they gave weekly quizzes, each worth 7.14% of your grade, and after the fourteen week semester you know exactly where you stand and your entire grade isn't swayed that much by one test.
But life isn't like that. Sometimes I get so worried about finals and study my brains out for a test. Then I take the test and I don't do as well as I had hoped. But it's enough to get an A. I really hate worrying about tests--it feels like cancer. Not that i know what it feels like; I have never actually had it before, but I have been told that I have a 50% chance of getting cancer.
I have devised a technique to make it so that I won't worry about finals anymore. I see where I stand grade-wise in my classes and calculate what score I have to get on my finals to end up with a 90% (A-)and a 94% (A). It usually helps, but sometimes it makes me a little overwhelmed. For example, my freshman year I was in an Advanced Physics course that involved a lot of calculus, and in order to get an A- I would have had to score a 124% on the final.




The nice thing about my major is that my classes are pretty easy. In the majority of my classes, I need a 64% to get an A- and an 85% to get an A.
I was seriously considering not studying at all, but then I thought about it and was worried that I would fail the finals miserably have to redo the classes.
So I'm studying just enough to get my 85%. Maybe an 86% if I feel like it.
That's what I call integrating book smarts with street smarts. They are not mutually exclusive.