Marika Bierma
UW Class of 2022

After studying for 2-3 hours every night during the week leading up to my first CHEM 143 midterm, I went into the twenty question exam with as much confidence as I could muster. It turns out that fifty minutes is not nearly enough time to analyze, solve, and answer twenty multiple choice questions. When I saw my score pop up in the grade book, my heart dropped. I had received a C-. 

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When I got my exam back the following day, though I was disappointed with my performance, I was also frustrated with the test itself. I was confident that I could have gotten a better score, but the time limit had hindered my performance. As you can see, I have taken another chemistry midterm in the last few weeks, and I scored much better on it. So what did I do differently? First, I changed my study habits. I began studying the practice problems over and over so as to make them like second nature. Chemistry is very calculation-based, so in order to to well on the exam I needed to be able to analyze and solve a problem in a matter of minutes. Next, I changed my test-taking strategy. If I could not solve the problem within the first two minutes of looking at it, I would skip it and come back later. 

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Overall, this experience demonstrated how different high school and college exams are. I can now say that I am satisfied with both exams, for I was within or above the standard deviation and I gained valuable test-taking skills.