And It's Done

Last exam came and went this morning. It didn't go great, despite my really having put quite a bit of time into it. The problem is clearly that I missed a few too many classes, and finally ran into a course that tested material beyond that given in the book. So I messed up (and I missed out). But it's over. I don't know what my final grade will be there, but it shouldn't be disastrous. And I still feel that all the other good news I've had lately more than balances it out.

Right now, time to just relax for a week or two. Sleep a lot, have warm soup, and good hot chocolate. Can get back to work after that.

I should probably order Klein's second mini-book for organic chemistry, because the first one was so incredibly useful. Or even the full text book he's just published (although that would be expensive - especially since I've already gone through ~half of it).

Something to look into getting though.

I'm Responsible. Really.

So I got a Job, it looks like. Yeah. It doesn't pay (I don't think, didn't ask, just assumed it won't), but I get to work with the head of the chemistry department researching next generation alternatives to penicillin (I think that's the topic... will see specifics later). It's something fun to do, it's something useful to put on my resume, and its a generally good use of my extra time next semester when I'm only taking one class.

So getting that was pretty fantastic.

Working on the upcoming cell bio test as well/still. There's far too much I have to memorize. Should have started sooner I guess, or gone to class more, or what have you. But It's time to work hard and make the best of that situation as well. It is the last thing I'll have to do in cell bio, so I should try and go out on a high note.

Busy Lately

I've been busy working on two lab papers and a presentation on Chromosome 5p Minus Syndrome, but my final o. chem lab (for the semester, at least) came and went this evening and my final cell bio lab is going to come and go tomorrow. I'll have to get up early to put the last bits on my paper, but it's pretty much all finished now.

After that, I've got the familiar situation of having four or five days to cram for a test that I can, theoretically, do well enough on if I put my mind to it. And after that vacation!

Things get tricky after that too, with the MCAT getting ever closer without my having gotten much more ready for it yet, but I'll take a week or two of vacation happily.

100 Percent (?)

Not really. I got an 80% on that last Organic Chemistry test - barely enough to count as a B-. For the semester though, with the first test, it averages out to an A-. With the curve, it gets bumped up to an A. So.... 4.0 again. Although not real (again?).

I'm not entirely sure if it warrants being happy, but I am. I did voluntarily skip some early cell biology stuff to focus on this class (a bad mistake, in retrospect...) Cell biology has suffered. Badly. I'll be lucky to get a B+ at this point, a B is very possible. So if I hadn't at least got an A in the class I skipped cell bio to focus on, it would have been a disaster. Even if the A is inflated, and fake, I'm happy. ... For what it's worth, around ten percent of the points I got off were all for the same mistake. I know why it was wrong now (and I probably did before the test too), so I actually /do/ know the material fairly well. (The reason I did ok despite that problem was, again, a silly 20 point bonus section that wouldn't have been offered at a more serious school).

What happens now?

Well, I don't take the Organic Chemistry Final now, although I have a vested interest in figuring out what I got wrong (since I'm taking O. Chem Two next semester). I'll try and do that.

Mostly though, the /only/ thing I have left to do this semester is salvage a B+ from Cell Biology somehow. That would be heavenly. And it's still possible. Technically. I have my test there on December 6th, and some lab stuff before. I'll be turning my full atention to that class, then.

Next semester, I'll turn my full attention to Organic Chemistry (my only class), and MCAT studying. I'll also (maybe? probably? hopefully?) look for a relevant job in my spare time.

Dieu le Veut.

Here's The Deal, Then

Ok, got the last bio test, and it was as bad as anticipated. I'll just say I failed. But it was a high F. So.... yeah. No more than 4 percent off my grade. Terrible, but not "omg terrible" in the end. I got my lab report back too, which was a B+, which is just fine if things stay there. The last Biology test isn't until December 6th, so I (should) be able to study for it a ton.

More pressing is the second O. Chem test, which is this coming Tuesday. If I do well, or even "kinda" well, that class is effectively over for me (for the semester) with a happy result. If I do bad... things get much more difficult: I'd need an A on the optional third O. Chem Test and an A on the Final Bio Test (both around the same day) to set things straight. I don't think it's realistic to expect that, at this point.

I'm fairly guilt ridden over my Biology performance, and inclined to show up to class tomorrow (I've missed several lately). I stayed up all of last night working on a lab report though, and in the grand scheme of things sleeping well now and studying well for my chem test is much much much more important than sating my guilt over doing badly in Biology. So I'll probably skip another class to recover all my sleep, and start working on the chem test (again) tomorrow.

I think it's safe to say I can (almost) judge this semester based on how this one test goes (sadly).

As of right now, I'm not ready. But there's time to fix that.

Did I Say Bad?

I meant awful. The test was awful. For real this time - I can be 100% positive, because I left ~25% blank. A 60% is probably on the "top" end of what I could have got...

So. I've said this before, and apparently didn't mean it. Or meant it and didn't follow through. Or something. But there's one more Bio Test, and I'm going to get a 95% or higher on it. Just as a point of order. It won't fix my grade, which is almost certainly shot by now, but I'm still doing it as a point of order.

The Organic Chemistry teacher who was away is, apparently, going to be MIA today also. So I guess I won't find out if the test is postponed today. But ... it kind of has to be. Almost. Either way, that's a big test and I need to start working on it. ... tomorrow.

MCAT Sign Up

Two-hundred and thirty-five dollars? Really? Fun. And I'm probably not even going to be ready for the test in time. I officially signed up for the MCAT this morning around 5:30 am though - I'll be taking it on April 29th at 1pm in a fairly pleasant spot not /too/ far from my home. The time and location work out nicely, if only I could actually be ready to take it.

Apparently the information I got about dates was slightly off too - registration opened up a bit earlier in October. Looks like I signed myself up early enough that it wasn't a problem at all though. Would have been stressful had it been, however.

The last day to reschedule this test is April 12th. I believe. Mostly by way of future reference to myself in case I want to. But I guess I'm going to try and find a way to get it done. If it doesn't work, I'd still have time for one more MCAT this application cycle, if I really wanted to. Or I could take it next year. Neither option sounds fun, so I'll try to find a way to get set up for this.

Other tests.... I have another of my mini Bio tests today. Surprise surprise, I'm not ready again. I don't feel any less ready than last time though so.... I don't know. I'm not expecting too much out of myself in that class at this point. Keeping my grade at an A- would be nice. A B+ might happen, and I'll deal. Will depend on lab (where I /still/ haven't got my report back). I've honestly got to say I'm disappointed in myself. I could go on for a pretty long time about that, and trying to muse about why I'm not actually putting 100% effort into this class. ... Or even 60% effort, honestly.

The other exam coming up is my second (and final, if I do well) organic chemistry exam. It was supposed to be next week originally which would be stressful, with the bio test today and two lab reports due on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our teacher has been MIA on a conference in China however, and I'm fairly sure the exam will get pushed back a week so we can finish covering things. I'll find out later this afternoon, but if it got pushed back a week that would be a huge break. I think one extra week would be enough to get set for it, and if I did well my semester would pretty much be over. I could start getting things in order - whatever it is that isn't.

Edit: And a new template, because it's too cold and fall-like to keep the spring one up any longer. I'm not sure if I'll stick with this one, but it's got warmer colors for now if nothing else.

The Last Courses

I e-mailed my adviser last night, immediately after remembering registration was open here, and got released to sign up for what will - hopefully - be my last set of undergrad courses. Ever. Thank god.

All I'm signing up for next semester is more organic chemistry, and the accompanying lab. It's a nice two day a week schedule, although I'll be busy the rest of the time trying to do MCAT work (or I'd better be, at least...)

I'll start worrying about formal MCAT prep soon, but right now I just need to finish up this semester one thing at a time. If I do well on my second chem test so I don't need to take the final, if I keep doing my "ok" lab reports for chemistry, if I get tomorrow's lab report for biology done "ok", and if I get the next two lab reports for biology done well, I might come out of things with a pretty decent semester.

Time To Reset

The lack of posts here lately is probably indicative of a general malaise/depression/fear I've been having.

Quantitatively, things aren't going that bad. I have an incoming O. Chem test in about two weeks, but until it gets here my GPA there is still an A. That test will be tough, but I think I can handle it ok if I start working hard now (which I have). My Cell Biology grade, and the effort I've put forth in that class, have both been lacking. But my grade there is no worse than a B (I got a 78% on that last test, by the way), and is almost certain to shoot up to an A- in the near future.

I just haven't been working all that hard on either course, which has got me feeling down on myself regardless of where grades actually stand. And I'm not sure my grades are indicative of anything either. I've pointed out the absurd grading system used here multiple times before - getting decent grades is something I /have/ to do, but it's not sufficient. And with little on my resume besides that time working at the hospital, I don't have much to back it up with apart from the possibility of the MCATs - and those are coming up way too fast.

I still haven't decided what to do for my test date, and I don't think there's anyway I'll come to some sort of wise decision. Taking it late would give me the most time to prepare, and I'd probably get ready for it, and I could get an extra year which would let me reapply for all those jobs with two year minimum requirements. But I've already put my career on hold for so long I really don't think I can stomach voluntarily pushing things off another year.

Taking the early MCAT means I'm fairly certain I won't be caught up on Physics though. And a bad score on it would effectively put things off another year anyways. The in between MCAT date /might/ give me enough time for physics, but it might not. And it would hurt my admissions chances more than they already are by virtue of having no resume.

I guess I need to make up my mind in the next few days, according to what I've posted on this site. I'm leaning towards the earliest date, and forcing myself into a "pass or crash" situation. Maybe that will re-motivate me. If it doesn't completely ruin everything.

I'll certainly have time to study for the MCATs at least, with only one course next semester (which I urgently need to remember to register for.... completely forgot until just now).

I Guess Triage Works

Haven't posted too much lately. A combination of being busy, sick, and a bit out of it. But we got our first Organic Chemistry test back the other day. It was a fairly relevant test, since we only have two in the class. Even more so, since I skipped one bio lab report (our lowest gets dropped though) and most of my cell biology exam studying time to focus more on Organic Chemistry.

The test went fairly well. I'll use well in quotation marks, because it was another weird test where 20 points of extra credit questions were asked, so you were taking a test out of 120 but really only being graded out of 100. I got a 99.5% out of 100, if you count the bonus. Which is what matters for my GPA, I guess. I honestly wonder if many other less than top tier schools run their courses the same way - it seems quite possible, and disappointing, to me. If you don't count the bonus questions though, I still would have had an 89.5%, which isn't an awful grade in its own right.

I was fairly convinced I'd fail the bio exam - literally - after skipping my studying for it to focus on this. But I showed up for that test last Monday and it went ok. I didn't do great on it, and there's plenty I got wrong, but I didn't fail it. It should still technically be possible to 4.0 in that course even, although I'd have to score perfectly on about everything from here out. So an A- is looking like the more realistic outcome there. Not too bad though, if I can keep it above a B+. The key is going to be doing really well on my lab reports, since I got a 0 on the one I didn't do to study chemistry instead. That's been dropped, but if I do badly on any of the remaining ones my average in that course will bleed out.

Spring registration is coming up soon. And I guess I have to decide when to take the MCAT. I still kind of don't want to take it in April or June, in part because I don't know if I can figure out physics for it in time, and in part because I'm convinced applying to medical schools this year would be a waste anyways since I didn't manage to get any relevant jobs beyond my volunteering gig.

On the other hand, if the last year or two of these post has showed me anything its that I tend to expect to fail, get down on myself, and then things kind of work out better than I'm expecting.

I'll try to have a talk with the premed advisers, I guess.

Not Looking Good

Well. The O. Chem exam is tomorrow. It's not looking too good, but not for lack of studying. I've studied at least six hours every day this last week, apart from today. I spent today trying to rush together an O. Chem lab report that's also due tomorrow. The lab report is, I can say with authority, awful.

The test will probably not go well. There's too much I only kind of understand. It's not like Physics, where I just wasn't getting it. I'd get it here if I had another empty week or so. That's not happening though. I'm going to get up early and go over everything another six hours or so before the exam tomorrow. It's not stylish, but will be fresh in my head, at least. If I'm a bit lucky, I'll do well enough I'll have a chance to fix things by doing well on the next test.

Doing well on the next test will take a different approach, I guess. Because this one week of heavy studying before the exam approach didn't really pan out. It would probably be better to just spend 1 hour or ninety minutes a day on it, but to manage to do that every day.

Keeping me from taking that reasonable approach is the fact I have another test coming up next week in Biology, and I'm far behind in that since I've put all my time into this lately. So..... it looks like I'll have to bounce back doing the same thing, and not getting great results anywhere.

And more jury duty.

Week Sucks

Busiest Ever. Huge Chem Exam Coming up I'm not ready for. And I wouldn't be generally ready even if I was ready for the test. I got locked out of my apartment - the lock did a 180 degree turn and stuck there. Somehow. Jury duty on Thursday - tried to get excused on account of college/exams/labs, but the courthouse never even got back to me as promised.

.... wonder if that should legally excuse me from showing up, as promised.

... Really?

Got back the cell biology test today, and was (pleasantly) surprised to have an 88%. It's not a great score or anything (mean was an 84%), but I was expecting something in the low 80s, or even in the 70's. I guess all the multiple choice questions I thought I was probably right on, but wasn't positive, ended up swinging things in my favor. All in all, I could probably keep an 88% exam average in this course and end up with an A for my final grade, if I keep getting A's in everything else.

Great bit of news that took away some stress (although I still have to find a way to do another O. Chem lab report tonight...)

Anyways, the big problem is still that O. Chem exam on the 5th. I'm still behind there (although have been working hard to catch up lately). If I somehow manage to pull off a good score on it, I think I'll be very pleased with where things stand at that point.

Gah! Cell Bio

So we had our first test in Cell Biology today. It was hard. Much harder than I had been led to believe (by my own thoughts, as well as by the prepared "review" sheet). Not that I can really complain, after a year of complaining how the other science classes were jokes. The test didn't go great. I don't think I failed it either though. And the tests in that class are worth an incredibly small percentage of the total grade (we even have four of them), so this is far from disastrous. Good call to (further?) action though.

Well. If the test went badly you might be asking if my last weekend was productive, as I had said it had to be.

The answer to that is... kind of yes. I got my lab report done for O. Chem lab, and was apparently the only person around who got an A on it. Most of the grades were actually really bad, like 70 or under. So.... that was impressive and well done. Then again, with hindsight, I'd probably have been much better off putting all that time into my Cell Bio studying instead. So I didn't really come out on top even though I did what I had wanted to do. Frustrating.

But on to the next thing. The next thing is the /big/ thing. It's the first of our two Organic Chemistry tests (or of three, if I take the optional last one). So as somewhere between 33-50% of my grade in that class, it's huge. It's also something I'm entirely not prepared to take, as of now. I have other stuff that needs to get done well too... but I'm just going to have to sac that stuff in order to get ready for this exam. A D on my next lab report will be totally fixable. A D on this test would pose problems.

This Weekend

Is going to have to be everything the last one wasn't. Very. Very. Productive.

Full stop.

Happy Labor Day

Time flies. Somehow I managed to get so little done this weekend. Before I knew it the first three days were up, and I'm spending the fourth one right now working on my O. Chem lab report. That qualifies as keeping up, assuming I get this finished, but it certainly doesn't count as catching up.

It's cause I went out on Friday, which was fine, but ended up having a few drinks more than I should have after dinner. Which kept me from doing anything other than feeling the pain of an awful headache on Saturday. Lesson learned? Going out and doing stuff with people is bad...

Well. I still think I'm in a fixable spot right now. I might not be up to speed with Organic Chemistry just now, but it seems so neat to me. The way the shapes of the molecule fix everything, and set up every reaction, and how all the different functional groups you draw on are responsible for everything... it's hard to describe, but it's kind of artsy, almost. There's something I find really fun about it. Hopefully that good attitude can transform into some sort of good understanding in the near future. We shall see.

Catching Up

I didn't get quite as much work done the other day as I'd been hoping, but I did get to go over the chapter from the class I missed in a lot of detail and feel like I'm pretty up to speed there, despite the absence. The bigger problem is organic chemistry, which I meant to spend some extra time with but didn't.

That's not an uncorrectable problem - some effort this weekend can easily get me feeling good about that course at this point. I've just got to make sure I actually do the work this weekend. I'm sure I've said it before, but I have a terrible tendency to put off work that isn't officially required. In a course like this where nothing is technically required beyond showing up and taking two tests, its a pretty slippery slope if I start falling behind early on. It should help that next Monday is a holiday, effectively giving me a four day weekend to catch up.

I was also able to change lab sections, for organic chem. That's great news, because I get to take it with the TA I had for both sections of gen chem last year.

Sick Already

Physically that is: not of my courses.

Universities are some kind of fetid breeding ground for disease, especially when the new freshman class comes in, and I managed to get the flu in my first few days. Right now I'm thinking I'm going to take tomorrow off to get better and get a chance to start waking up earlier more gradually (last week didn't work well, trying to wake up earlier suddenly. I'd have no sleep, and then crashed when I got back home from my courses, so when night came I couldn't sleep again).

It's annoying missing a class this early. If it was later at least I wouldn't mind the time off, but right now time off is the last thing I'm really looking for. Nothing to it but to make sure I get lots of work done at home tomorrow, to balance it out. Then if I can manage to start getting up earlier naturally and fall in some kind of rhythm, it might be for the best.

Final Courses: Go!

And here we are. I can't decide if it feels like the time went by quickly or slowly, it was probably a bit of each. Either way, the last two courses I need to take before I can apply for med school begin this Monday. Organic Chemistry is a year long course, so it won't finish this semester, but Cell Biology is only a one semester affair. I picked up my books for each today (and am worried the cell bio one is missing some sort of CD I might need), and am reasonably excited to get this underway.

Organic Chemistry is typically supposed to be one of the harder courses around. I don't want to say the goal is to weed out premeds, because I've run into very few teachers who genuinely want their students to not succeed, but that's typically the result. One of the problems (allegedly) is that people approach it as a massive memorization game - typically with disastrous results, because there's more you'd have to memorize than is achievable without something close to a photographic memory. The goal is to only memorize a few things, and then get a complete handle on the mechanisms behind reactions so that you can predict how X, Y, and Z will react given that they have similar properties to A, B, and C.

That's also why medical schools like the course, I think. The chemistry itself is only mildly useful, unless you're going to medical school to pursue a career in research. What's more useful is that the course forces you go through a process very similar to analyzing/diagnosing/treating rather than just memorizing a set of facts.

Additionally, I've already brought up how a good grade here will help me justify my bad grade in the second half of Physics as the result of simply never having seen an Integral before the course. A bad grade here, on the other hand, and it starts to show a pattern of me not being able to handle really difficult material. Two courses probably isn't enough to prove that pattern's presence or absence, but its all medical schools would have to go on so its importance is artificially inflated for me.

I don't know too much what Cell Biology will be like, although apparently we get to play with cancer cells in the lab at some point. Sounds very neat. Hopefully it won't take up too much time though, because Organic Chemistry and (of course) the MCAT have me much more concerned.

Speaking of the MCAT, I've fallen off my flash card studying a bit since I left for my vacation, and need to get back on top of that. The test itself is really overwhelming, and I'm just not sure how to approach it. It has so much on it, and right now I'm just sort of looking at it dumbfoundedly (which is, I guarantee, the worst way to prepare). I think that might actually be an argument for starting the MCAT review in October, rather than the one I had been leaning towards in January. Having some company help me break it up into smaller pieces at an early start date could be helpful, since it seems pretty tough to do by myself. I'll be able to force-cram closer to the test just fine on my own though, and don't need to pay anyone for help with that.

It's not an overwhelming reason to start in October, but I'm thinking about it much more seriously now.

MCAT Prep

So I decided it was time to genuinely start getting ready for the MCAT, instead of just talking about it. Of course, that won't stop me from talking about it as well.

There are two flavors of prep: official and unofficial. Official is going to be working with companies like Kaplan, or old administered MCATs that have been put out and are now serving as examples. Unofficial will be me working with myself to get up to speed on physics, remember my Gen. Chem, learn things I was never taught in my Biology courses, etc. There's still plenty of time before the test, but I really can't put off getting ready for it any longer. It's unbelievably epic in scope.

Registering for Kaplan courses is something that has to happen soon, but is also a bit difficult. Two are offered (several more actually, but mostly at different locations rather than at different times). One meets one day a week from (roughly) October 2010 to April 2011 on Saturdays, and the other course meets two days a week from January 2011 to April 2011 on Monday and Wednesday evenings. I'd prefer the second set-up I think, but I don't know my schedule for the second half of next year yet. It's very likely I won't be forced into taking evening labs on Monday and Wednesday since Organic Chemistry is my only course and I /should/ have scheduling options, but I don't know. It's also possible only two labs will be offered, and that they'll fall on Monday and Wednesday evening. There's not much to do here though - I have until the start of October to figure out what my schedule might be like, and which of these courses to sign up for.

More immediately, I've put together a set of some 7-800 flashcards that have terms/definitions of things from Gen. Chem, Organic Chem, Biology, and Physics that will be on the MCAT (ie: Aldose, Interstitial Cells, the Permittivity of Free Space, Effusion, etc). My goal is to learn these words as best as possible between now and the time I (hopefully) start my "official" review work in January. That means I just have to memorize some 5-6 terms a day, 6-7 days a week. It's s a fairly reasonable amount, but spread over the morning and the evening I can probably do it in just under an hour a day. Every week I'll do some sort of review to keep from forgetting the terms I've gone over in the last two weeks or so, and then I'll do a bigger review at the end of each month.

Knowing this stuff well come January will be a good pay-off for when the "real" studying starts. Some of it provides good "grounding" for more serious review over the next four months, and some of it should translate directly into points on "An example of Ohm's Law is A, B, C, or D" type questions on the actual exam.

Before January, I'm also going to re-open a Physics book (out of necessity rather than desire - I don't think January to April is enough time for "relearning" Physics).

I'm hoping my Organic Chemistry course is going to be reasonably difficult (it should be), so that it simultaneously serves as a good review for the MCAT. O. Chem should also force me to use some Gen. Chem principles on a regular basis, so out of class I get to focus most on Biology and Physics.

I'll start with my flash cards focusing on Gen. Chem though - that might be a good review for starting up O. Chem as well as for the MCAT.

MCAT Dates and My Grades

First off, I got a 4.0 in Biology 210. It didn't come as that much of a surprise, since I'd calculated that I would have had to score as poorly as a D+ on the lab final to get an A- instead, but it's still nice to have the grade be official.

Second, back to the MCAT.

I got in touch with the AAMC and had a few of my questions answered. The 2011 schedule actually is up, if somewhat hidden (I think I'd even stumbled on it in one of my posts a long time ago, and lost track since). I now have the link to it, and its solidly bookmarked so it won't get lost again. There are multiple dates and April and May, but only one in June. July and August are both out of the picture for me - I think I've officially decided they're too late.

It takes roughly 30 days for your scores to get back to you after you take the exam, so that will be an important point to consider. Registration for the MCAT itself doesn't open up until November (I didn't get a specific day, so I'll assume 1st until I find out otherwise), so I have a bit of time to figure out what to do.

In April, the test is offered on the 9th and 16th at 8:00 AM, and on the 29th at 1:00 PM. In May, it is offered on the 7th, 20th, and 21st at 8:00 AM, and on the 26th at 1:00 PM. In June it is offered on the 16th at 8:00AM and 2:00 PM.

Since it only takes 30 days to get scores back, there's not a single compelling reason to take the April 9th or 16th tests unless you were worried about doing badly and wanted time to take it again before applying. Taking it in June is, I think, probably too late also. It would be "doable", but I'd be far behind many people in the application process. I'm partial to the two dates at 1:00 PM, since being awake for tests is good. The second of those two dates is still pretty late though, sadly. The 20th and 21st are pretty close together, and the only real difference is that one is on a weekend (which is more convenient for some, and might be more crowded). So I'm going to arbitrarily chop out the 21st as well to narrow down my list.

So I have four dates to pick from: April 29th (ideal, if I'm ready then), and May 7th, 20th, or 26th.

The MCAT and Application Schedule

So there's still lots of time before the actual MCAT (I won't take it before the April date, most likely, if not later). I don't know the list of 2011 dates though, or when the AAMC opens up registration for the test, and I haven't decided on whether I want to go for a test in April/May/June/whatever yet either.

This is the kind of thing that's easy to push off day-by-day and let slip a bit if you're not proactive about it. If that happened, one day I'd wake up and realize that my preferred test date was full and I had to take it later, or I'd have to drive 75 miles to a testing spot that wasn't full yet. It's also important to figure out for the purposes of signing up for a prep-course before it gets filled up, so I want to decide when I'm taking the test, and I want to register the moment it opens up. I found the AAMC phone number and was going to call them today to figure this out. It turns out they close two hours early on Wednesdays (go figure), so I'll give it a try tomorrow.

The general AAMC application opens at the very beginning of June; in my case, we're looking at June 2011. That's not the test - it's the real application where I start filling out forms, writing essays, and sending in my grades to various medical schools. The application period runs through summer and into early fall (varying a bit by school). The earlier you apply the better it is for you, since many places work on rolling application where invites get sent through the cycle on a case by case basis.

While the MCAT is offered year-round, if you take it in April your score should be back in time to apply at the very start of the application process in June. If you take a later MCAT, you get extra time to study. I've mused on this before, but it's hard for me to figure out if this sort of trade-off would be worth it. I really think I'd prefer April or May. Taking the test in May 2011 might be a good option, but I'm just not sure if the extra month of study time is worth my application coming into the cycle a bit late. And with only 1 class in my second semester, I /should/ have lots of time I could spend studying on the MCAT. In theory, you'd think I could get ready for an April test date. Then again, I need to find out how long it takes to get MCAT scores in. If I take it in May, will the scores be in just a few days after June starts? If that were the case, I'd hardly miss on anything at all. On the other hand, maybe I wouldn't get them in until the end of the month, which would be more serious.

I wish I could put off the decision until I saw how I was doing in Organic Chemistry and knew how much of my life that course was eating up, but that's just not possible.

Interviews for schools will start being sent out to fortunate individuals in August 2011, and you would actually begin school in the fall of 2012.

And Test Three is Back

Another 100~ yay!

Good thing, too, because I did decidedly worse on the lab final. That was only worth 1/16th of my grade though, so it wasn't an overwhelming disaster. I didn't fail it either, although its possible I might have got a C (although a B is also quite possible).

From the main part of the course alone I have a 71.5% (if I were to get a 0% in lab). To get a 4.0 in this particular class (curved so that a 93% is an A, instead of a 94%), I'll need to get 21.5 percentage points out of the lab somehow (that is, I need an 86% or better as my final lab grade). Three-fourths of my grade there is a 94% or better, I think. If that's the case, it looks like I'll manage to pull off the 4.0 if I got a high D on the final exam. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do /that/ badly. I should find out soon.

Wow. What a dry two paragraphs.

It's good news, and might be written up more happily except that my pc unexpectedly crashed on me the day I was supposed to e-mail this very final to my professor. I hadn't quite finished the test even - I had one question left. I woke up late, not in a rush since it was mostly done. Went outside, got some coffee, came back, and bam. The PC that had been working great the night before decided it was a good time to start pretending it had no hard drive.

It cost a ton to fix it up - not even for the actual repairs, but because the store had a policy of not working on week-ends without an extra "service fee". A huge service fee. But I really had no choice, because I couldn't get an extension for computer problems. So I did that, then went to my parents house to work on the exam on their old pc that barely starts up and has an outdated version of word, and got my exam mailed in right before the midnight deadline.

I have to say I think I actually earned the 100 on this one, more or less, unlike the last one. And not just because I had to deal with gross inconvenience - my answers were reasonably solid.

I suspect my PC isn't properly fixed even as we speak, and am holding my breath for it to fall apart again in a day or two. It's still saying there's no hard drive, although its starting up again. We'll see what happens, I guess, but if I'm away from the blog for awhile that will be the reason.

Fortune is Fickle

Well, I just got the second biology test back and -believe it or not - I apparently got a 100. I'm not quite sure how to explain it... maybe the teacher didn't have enough time and rushed to grade them, maybe everyone else did much worse than I did on the first test and he had to grade this one more loosely to get everything back in balance, or maybe I was being a bit too hard on myself. Who knows.

Either way, this means I technically now have an A in the class. Until our lab final on wednesday, at least. That should knock it down to an A- (because I can tell I'll have issues spotting what veins and arteries are what in a dead rat), which is still a perfectly fine grade to end up with.

Now everything come down to the last test, due this coming Saturday. Hopefully, with a bit of work on it, I can keep an A- for the course. Maybe I can get lucky and manage another 100, and actually end up with a completely unexpected A. This is a very fortunate development.

Bad Puns Are Bad

Rat dissection lab continues today. Last lab, the title in the manual was "Getting to Know Your Rat". Fair enough. The next part featured cutting the rat open so you could examine its digestive and urogenital systems.

The title? "Getting to Know Your Rat Inside-Out".

... Sigh.

Dissections

So we got to cut up big rats in our last lab. What made it mostly unpleasant, to me at least, was peeling the skin off. Cutting through the muscles and sorting the organs and everything was fine, but something about peeling the skin off bit by bit just wasn't fun at all. The preservatives and such used weren't too fun either - they smelled kind of rancid.

It was interesting getting a chance to look at all the organs and the circulatory system, and I got my first look at the superior/inferior vena cava, which I've always wanted to see. In all fairness though, I don't think what I learned justified that poor rats slow suffocating death so I could do this. Their tongues were all stiff and hanging out of their mouths still when we got them. Oh well.

I also found out that next week is actually the final week of this course. I'd lost track of when it was supposed to end, and that completely shocked me since we just handed in our second exam. It looks like the time between exams wasn't particularly balanced though, and now I get to turn around and do my final over this coming weekend. It's just as good, really: this course needs to end. For whatever reason I'm not all that into things, and I could use two weeks or so to reset before I start the harder courses this fall. I have another trip booked for the beach, although this time I get to go with/be driven by my parents on account of having mangled my own car in the last attempt.

Looking forward to that trip - hopefully I can manage it without serious injury this time...

Tears

Fun Fact: After binding to a bacterial cell wall, viruses use an enzyme called lysozyme to degrade the wall and enter. This same enzyme is present in human tears, where it acts as an antibiotic to protect our eyes.

Picked that up working on my exam, and thought it was neat.

The exam is going fairly well. Its almost done now (as well it should be). Some of it was more involved than I'd anticipated though, and the questions I finished up yesterday aren't really "finished" to a perfect standard. So I guess it looks like I relaxed a bit too much when all was said and done anyways. It's not badly done though... we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get another B+. I really have this awful tendency to become lazy, and I can't believe I let it happen this semester after working so hard the last one. It's disappointing. I'm still sliding by, a B+ isn't awful, and it's quite possible I can up my grade to an A- or A even if I do get another B+. It's just disappointing. And not good.

It makes me worry about the actual application process down the road from here. I have a deep seeded fear of not making it, and am acutely aware of several people more qualified to get into med schools than I am (unless you count the whole I got unexplained epilepsy/I care thing as a strong reason to think I should get in).

I can finish this class sliding by, but if I get (or stay) lazy next semester when I have hard courses again, I'll be ruined. Must fix.

Bio 210: Test Two

Ok. Well, I was planning on catching up to the reading, but we got our second test e-mailed to us early this time (which is great). It's going to be due the 19th (next Monday), so I have part of this weekend and all of next weekend to work on it. Not to mention the whole week stuck in between those two.

Unlike the first test, this one clearly indicates that we can use our book or other sources, so long as we cite them. (Which isn't as big a deal as you might think, because its designed so all the questions are broad and conceptual rather than "______ is the name for a the component of a plants vascular tissue that....").

Anyways. The net effect of this (for better or worse), is that it's going to discourage me from leisurely catching up as I had planned. Instead, I'm going to treat it as a research project and only read the material that's directly targeted at the questions here. There's six questions or so, which means that if I start today or tomorrow I can go at the very comfortable rate of answering one question per day, and I'll still have some time left over to review it/take care of stuff if something unexpected comes up.

This probably isn't the best long-term approach, but it's a nicely stress free approach that should (hopefully) get me a decent score on this test. That makes it a better short-term approach than worrying about all the things that aren't on the test, and then ending up with only two or three days for the actual exam.

Bio 210 Test Back

Well, I haven't posted in awhile. I've been feeling pretty out of it the last two weeks or so after the accident. I've had headaches and felt kind of light headed. I'm not sure how much of that was due to the painkillers, but it wasn't all of it. I think I'm starting to feel better as of yesterday though, although I'm not quite back yet.

Anyways. We got the Biology test back today and I got a B+ on it. It's not a particularly good grade, but given the way I've been doing the last two weeks I think a decent case can be made that its not a particularly bad grade either. There are two tests left, so there's still plenty of room to try and nudge my grade back up to an A of some type. I think I can do better on the next one - I'll certainly feel better when I'm trying to get it done.

My grade in the lab portion is probably a B+ as well as of now, so ideally one of the two things has to get up a tiny bit between now and the end of the course.

Our classes are running longer this Semester, going for the full three hours instead of the ~2 hours and change my last two summer courses have (typically) run. It's been really hard to sit through that with my headaches and dizziness, and its been frustrating because I think what's covered could be covered more efficiently. I'm also less interested in what we're doing at the moment: we're going through a big section on botany and plants, which I just find hard to get excited over. The teacher is too nice to dislike though... I'm just arbitrarily frustrated. It's probably mostly just been a result of my own health.

The heat has been over 100 degrees the last few days as well. Since I have to walk everywhere now that my car is no more, that hasn't been helping out either.

Oh well. I think I'm starting to feel better, and the temperatures are supposed to go down (a little bit) as well. So hopefully I can start turning this around in time.

Bio 210: Test One

Well, the first of three tests is upon me. It's a take home exam, due on Wednesday the 30th (so I have plenty of time to work on it, even with the fact that I'm going to be busy this weekend driving around to insurance offices because of this car crash I was in last week).

I've given the test a cursory look, and it seems pretty straight forward. Six questions, five of the short essay type and one of the longer essay type. Nothing that seems to be particularly confounding on it. If the essays aren't graded surprisingly harshly (and I doubt they would be, given that the idea of a take home is to make it less stressful and easier), its looking like most of the 75% of our grade from exams is assured, and what will make the difference between a B+ and an A will be how well we can do in Lab.

That car accident I was in really has been a bit of a downer. Above and beyond the obvious fact that having your nice car ruined is no fun, it's giving me a lot of extra paperwork to do, and sending me to all sorts of offices this weekend (I'd much rather be getting started on this test, so I could guarantee a great outcome on it). I'm also sore, all over. The pain meds help that, but they're fogging up my head a little bit too, which doesn't help for this test stuff either. At least this sort of paperwork and pain are problems that are assured of slowly fading away with every passing day.

In unrelated news, I've been trying to upgrade my PC a little bit (I figured it'd be cheaper than getting a new one, and would achieve most of the same things). ... Yeah, no dice. All of the new graphics cards are somehow too big for my tower by the tiniest of margins, and I've been paying ridiculous extras to have people install stuff (that had to be uninstalled afterwards, or was simply no longer needed afterwards because it was only installed to power a card it turned out I couldn't use, or.... nightmare.) I'm done "upgrading" my pc - I'll just take my time to save up for a brand new one down the line, where everything has already been assembled in a way that works. I can't believe I wasted around two hundred dollars and got, effectively, nothing.

Bio 110 Grades

Our grades for the first summer session's Biology course came out, and I actually ended up with an A/4.0. That's great, of course, if somewhat unexpected. I'm thinking it means the class as a whole probably got a little curve, which would have bumped me up from the A- I was expecting. More importantly, maybe it means I can ask the teacher for a letter of recommendation after all... I'm really not sure now. At any rate, I worked hard and, despite various moments of drama, it looks like that course went down well.

The second summer session's Biology course (210) started up yesterday. This session we only have class two days a week, although it's for roughly 8 hours at a time, which is a bit much. Both my teacher and my TA seem great though, this time around. The course (as taught by him) seems slightly more laid back too. The exams are going to be three separate take-home essays (And each will be worth 25% of our grade, instead of 20% like last semester).

That will eliminate all the stress of trying to memorize the details of processes because I feel like being OCD again, and hopefully I can end this semester up with an A- or an A as well. That would put me into a pretty strong position, going into Cell Biology and Organic Chemistry next year - the only class I haven't done well in was Physics, and I'll have done almost perfectly in everything else. One thing that's a bit essential is that I get to know the teacher enough that he can give me a letter of rec. Getting five letters of reccomendation is going to be difficult.

Worst Trip Ever

So my car decided to wrap itself around a tree. I have no memory of how that happened, so it wouldn't surprise me if it had been caused by a seizure happening again for the first time in a long while. It wouldn't shock me if I had got a small concussion in the crash either though, and simply don't remember what occurred for that reason.

I'm lucky, I guess. Whatever happened no on else was hit. I got a lot of small cuts and a tons of bruises, but nothing /really/ damaging happened to me. I still feel sore, and I probably will for the rest of the week, but you could do worse than that given how smashed up the car was when I eventually got back to see it (which makes me want to say I'm unlucky...).

Well. I got helicoptered over to the hospital and woke up on that this time. It freaked me out less than the last time I lost my memory and woke up surrounded by paramedics. Guess it's just something you get used to.... Anyways, after a night in the hospital, my father picked me up, and we managed to get down to the beach for a portion of the originally planned time. It wasn't nearly long enough, but at least I got some good seafood, and a chance to spot the ponies (and a family of ducks that seems to have lived in that town for the past several years).

Today, my second Biology class starts. This one only meets two days a week, but it's for about 8 hours back to back, which sounds absolutely awful. Especially right now. Oh well - there's no choice.

Beachward Bound

Bio 110 is officially over today. We had our lab final, which went just fine, and I got told that I had the best lab report by far and would have knocked everyone's grade down if we were on a system where the highest score set the curve... which was a bit awkward, but I enjoyed hearing (it was a pretty cool report, actually. I could have done it a bit better if I'd had more time to mess with wording/proofreading, but I tried a new sort of approach I've never gone with before and it came out great).

Not that this makes up for yesterday's real final, of course. A 100 on the lab final today wouldn't be able to bump my grade back up to a 4.0, and the whole thing could only have had a negative impact on my grade (and that only if I'd done really badly). It's still nice to end the course on a positive up-note though, especially since I felt like everything else had gone great up to yesterday. This gets rid of the bad taste it left in my mouth a bit, even if I am stuck with an A- now (the horror).

More interestingly, a strong A in lab means that if I get a B+ for whatever reason I'll /know/ it's because I got hammered on my essays for no valid reason (they weren't bad). Which, in turn, means I'll know not to ask this teacher for a letter of rec (which could be a problem... I probably need a letter from the pre-med advisor, unless I can get the kind people at Vanderbilt to provide one for me beyond the cover they offered).

An A- is looking likely for my final grade. An actual A is still possible if a curve gets applied to the whole class (even if it's a tiny curve, it would probably still get it done for me). We'll see what happens.

At any rate, I've gotten a good read on myself out of this class - and that's invaluable. It wasn't easy like some of my other classes, and I found out that I was perfectly capable of getting it done well up until the very end, when I got too arrogant to study or... whatever it is that gave me that face-palm moment. I also got that I'm not at the top of the top - I was getting low A's and an A- on the tests, nothing like solid 100s.

It goes to show the importance of hard work, I guess. I've been on a reading binge lately, going through the works of Haruki Murakami, and that's something he talked about a lot in his pseudo-memoir. It's also a theme that creeps up in most of his books. How very few people are actually truly exceptional, and even those who seem so have a pool of talent that can dry up. Working hard can go a long way in compensating for lacking talent, and not working hard because of talent can ruin you if your talent pool ever does dry up and you're not able to handle it. (He's a fun author, and has some good books worth checking out if you want to read someone more interesting than me).

All this said, it's break time! *(For three days).

I'm going to make the most of it though: early tomorrow morning I'm heading out to this beach and wildlife preserve I go to every year tomorrow morning. I'm stuck going by myself this time, but it will still be a nice break from work. There's a ton of birds, and usually you get to see lots of wild deer and ponies too. Sometimes you get to see something really neat - I remember once there was an epically huge crab that just jumped in front of me and ran faster than you could possibly believe. And speaking of Murakami, I'm bringing his newest book with me as well.

Once I'm back, I'll find out what my grade in Bio was, and will dive headfirst into 210.

Hamartia

I guess an error was made in preparing for this last test; or in failing to do so adequately, rather.

It didn't go well. I'd guess I got a B, probably on the low end. Certainly low enough to knock my A down to an A-. It shouldn't be low enough to lock my A- to a B+, but now it's close enough that the teacher could make it a B+ by giving me an arbitrarily low score on those essays, if she felt like it.

Not a good ending to the course, although it could certainly have been much worse. It's easy to feel overconfident when you've had no problems with the first two tests and everyone else has been, I guess. I didn't study enough early enough, and by the time I started and realized that this test had much more on it than the others, it was too late.

No one's fault but mine.

Sweeps Week and Shopping

Well, with the final exam this coming Wednesday Bio 110 is pretty much finished up now. It's going to be a tremendously busy week though - I also have to type up a lab report for Tuesday and Thursday, a little essay on genetics for Wednesday, and I have my lab "final" on Thursday as well. I'm set up for it pretty well though, I think. It would be nice if I'd managed to get my mini-essay or something done today, but I'm still in pretty good shape.

I'm hoping to do the essay and the first lab report tomorrow, so I can study really hard for the exam on Monday and Tuesday. I'm current on the reading for it already (or will be once I catch up on 10 or 15 pages with my morning coffee tomorrow), so those two evenings would both be solid study time rather than just "learning" time.

It's shaping up to be the hardest test of the semester, in terms of the amount of mechanisms that need to be memorized. I don't think it's anything I can't handle though. What will be interesting to see is my final grade in the course, as long as I can get an A- or better on this final that is. How the grade comes out will go a /long/ way towards determining if this is a teacher I can ask for a letter of rec in the future or not, my "this answer is correct, your question is in error" escapade notwithstanding. If I get an A in the course, (which is probably what I'd average, barring any vindictive essay grading) I can feel pretty secure. A B+ would show that I'd been hammered on the essays for no good reason though, and that I should seek letters elsewhere. An A- might show that as well, although it would be harder to pin down.

At any rate, I bought a new 23" HD monitor to celebrate finishing this class up, and am typing from it right now. It's really neat, and I have a new wall paper up that looks absolutely gorgeous at this resolution. I'm also going to get a three-day weekend at the beach once this week is over, and am /definitely/ looking forward to that. The forecast is calling for scattered thunderstorms on two of the three days, but that's not too bad - especially if they're just scattered. When I get back to town, classes will start right up again with the higher level Bio 210, but I'll also get to see a band I like that's coming to town, and a friend who's coming over from Europe for a few days. Speaking of friends, I even ran into some from high school the other day and we're probably going to get together a bit too. Good times, as long as I force myself to keep my focus on the work that has to be done rather than the fun I could be having.

Persistance Pays Off. Somewhat.

I showed up with various highlighted articles. Each stated cases where temperature had a significant impact on at least one portion of the cell cycle, or the creation of a component necessary for the cycle's progression. It was a pretty open/shut case. It was pretty awkward.

I started trying to say that I picked cell damage simply because it sounded as if it was an internal cause, when the question was asking for external causes. I tried that first because it would have been an easy fix that shouldn't have upset anyone (and I think it was true). It didn't fly though, so I either had to go to option two and bring out my papers, or just walk away. If you've been reading this, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that I decided to pull out the papers.

I got my points back (yay, no more B+). I also got what felt like an icy stare of death. I started trying to summarize the articles, and got cut off with an "I can read them myself," so I don't think it worked out well at all in that regard. I have a sneaking suspicion it didn't actually change my final grade either - 15% of our grade is locked up in a few short essays, and none have been returned to us yet. That's a bit suspicious, given the incredible turn around on the tests themselves, and I suspect that 15% is effectively being held as a kind of "participation/misc" grade.

Maybe I shot my chance at a letter of rec too (and an important one, at that...). Although if simply trying to straighten something like this out shot my chance at a letter, I don't know... science is supposed to be about getting to the facts at the bottom of things. I just wanted credit for what was - with ample proof - a correct answer. Or at the /very/ least a situationally correct answer. I worked really hard getting ready for the test, and knew the answer to the question. I think it was reasonable to want credit for it.

I wish things had gone better, atmosphere wise. I have a habit, it seems, of creating difficulties with people when I really really don't mean to. It's unfortunate. Offending someone over their test was the last thing on my mind. I'm just really concerned over grades, since I can't really fall back on anything if I don't manage to get into a medical school. And I'm a bit OCD. Once doing this got into my head, it couldn't get out until it was done.

Outcome wise, at least, it felt nice. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to call it a defining moment in my journey. I felt decidedly scientific, having spent the weekend pulling up journal articles focusing on things related to (but beyond) what I'd covered, and working hard to make sense of them. It was a pretty inspirational process, from the moment I decided to fix things to the moment things got fixed.

I only wish I hadn't (possibly) blown the chance for a crucial letter of rec in the process. (And, similarly but slightly separate - I wish I hadn't upset anyone's feelings over the matter).

I'm Going to Do Something

About that 89. Or try to do something, at least.

I talked about complaining after the last test, but never did. Because clearly it would have been inappropriate given the circumstances. This time though, I might actually do it in regard to that one question where I changed my answer because of the word "external".

I've found a paper from 1978 from Trinity College at the University of Dublin, claiming that an experiment showed temperature did affect cell cycle time in particular cases with HeLa cells. A second paper from 1985 from Northwestern talks about the effects of extreme heat shock on the Mitotic cycle when cells are shifted between severly warm and severly cold environments, and back again, with no time to adjust. There seems to have been some impact there as well. If I have some free time this weekend, I'm going to go through these papers, look for others, cite them - and then go ask for at least one of my two points back (I'll also point out that a cell's damage was an /internal/ condition).

Is it petty? Yes. (Remember when I was talking about being OCD in my studying a few posts back? This sort of nonsense is a great example of that...) Is it going to change my final grade in the course? Probably not, even if I get it changed on this one question. Will it make me feel better? Absolutely.

The only real question is how it will make the teacher feel... will she start thinking of me as a completely insufferable person who went out of the way to get 1-2% back on an exam in which they didn't do badly in the first place, or will they be marginally impressed by the fact I cared enough to do outside research, cite it, and bring it up? If I'm polite about the whole thing... I don't know. It could go either way, and make them think better about me or worse.

Edit: Just got that Lab "exam" back this afternoon, and I actually got an A- on it instead of the B/B+ I thought I might have had, so that's more good news. It looks like my lab grade now is a strong A, and will help drag the overall grade up to a 4.0 if it ends up just a bit short of that.

More Specifically

Having had the night to dwell on it more, here's why I'm really disappointed in this test. Of the 11% points I didn't get, 6% was on questions that I knew would be there. I didn't know the actual questions, but I had convinced myself that there would be a question on one of the various cycles asking what the impacts of taking away "x" or damaging "y" would be, and I was convinced that there would be a question asking for a definition of a basic and simple term that featured two-plus key components. I also knew I'd have trouble answering both of those things (for different reasons) before I even walked into the exam. And I didn't (couldn't?) do anything about it.

I'm not sure if not doing anything about it or being unable to do anything about it is worse. In the first case I'd have been lazy, in the second - merely incompetent (the word's a bit strong, but you get the point).

Another 2% was lost on a question I knew the answer to, but went back and second guessed myself on. It was a question on what external factors impact the cell cycle. The answer was cell damage, and I knew it, but I picked something else because a cell's damage is - technically - an internal factor. :: Sigh ::

Only 3% was lost on stuff that I don't "regret". I really could/should have had my A on this.

The positive take, I guess, is that I'm apparently good at reading this teacher's tests at this point. So hopefully I can figure out the final, and not have any questions I know I'll have difficulty with when I walk in to take it. I should also avoid second guessing myself over phrasing, because these tests apparently aren't designed to try and catch us on minute details like that. I really want a 100 on the final. Or something very near that. Time to go to work.

Bio Test Two

We got the test back the same day again, which was nice. The test itself wasn't so nice; its embarrassing to have to admit I got an 89. I'm curious what the class average is... Ultimately it doesn't really matter how I stack up to anyone but myself though, so I guess it's really a moot point. I know I did better than 1/2 of us at the least, although I have no clue how the other 4 people did.

An 89 isn't awful: I'm just disappointed. I can rattle off a ton of stuff that wasn't on the test in some great detail. I guess I'm OCD of sorts, and had to make myself study all that stuff again when I knew it wouldn't be on the test. Then, like last time, I managed to miss some more or less obvious stuff. It's pretty inexcusable - if I'm going to spend so long getting all the detail down, why do I miss some surface stuff?

Well. Here we are. The class is 2/3 done. My GPA is still ok actually. It's a 3.7/A- at worst, and probably still a 4.0/A once you take lab into account. Unfortunately, I'm now in a position of /having/ to do well in lab to keep that 4.0 though... unless I get a 100% on the final. It's not a great position to be in. It's not like an A- average in the course would be unacceptable, but I really really want to get that A since it's within reach, what with Physics and all.

No Luck

Looks like this job's not going to work out. I can't say I'm particularly surprised, and its nice that someone actually got back to me this time. Oh well.

We had a lab "exam" in class today, which was worth about 1/5 of our Lab Grade (which is worth about 1/4 of our total grade in turn). It didn't go great - not that it went badly, I probably got a B+ or something. I'm a bit annoyed, because I realised stuff I'd forgotten to do right after I walked out. It's not a big deal though - unless I failed it (which I didn't), it's impossible for it to seriously impact my overall grade as long as I keep doing well on the real exams.

As far as those real exams, I'm a bit behind the ball again. I've gone over all the material, but am a bit thrown off by all the extra detail in the book that we didn't do in class. I'm assuming that it won't be on the test: that sort of detail wasn't last time. I'm not 100% sure though, which is making stuff a bit stressful. I'll go over it again tonight, and get up early tomorrow so I can get all the important processes down flawlessly. Hopefully the less important stuff will just show up on multiple choice, and I'll know the answer (or be able to narrow it down and guess with some fortune).

A Job, Take Two?

Well, I'm looking into a new option now - getting to work with a local rescue squad on ambulances with paramedics and such. It sounds really exciting, and would be a great opportunity to do something useful, fun, and interesting.

As always, there's a catch - they want you to be able to devote 2+ years to it (which is reasonable, since it takes most of one year to earn the various certifications you need).

Given that I'm hopefully heading off to medical school in 15 months, that's a problem (that seems to be a problem with everything I find....)

I sent an e-mail saying that my preference would be to go to medical school here in DC (which is sort of true, if you ignore my pipe-dream of Vanderbilt). If I did that I'd be in the area for well beyond 2+ years but, of course, I can't guarantee being admitted into a DC area medical school (the numbers, in fact, suggest I have very little chance at it: I didn't go into that).

There's nothing to do but wait for their reply, I suppose. I'm not optimistic, but it would be neat if it did work out.

In other affairs, I'm still just studying for my Bio test. It was a bit cool today, but the pool opens and it should be 90 and sunny tommorow - I'm looking forward to getting through at least one chapter there.

Advising

I had a phone-meeting today with my old pre-med advisor from my Vanderbilt, to try and sort out a few questions that have been in my head. It was nice talking to someone from my old school, and it was nice to not have to talk to my current pre-med advisor at AU. She seems nice, but she's been having to deal with a lot lately: I think there have been some deaths in the family, and her pet dog got cancer and needed to have its leg amputated (This is the same dog I complained about her having in her office the first time I met her a year ago or so... which makes me feel pretty bad now). I'm sure the last thing she really wants to deal with is premed students coming to her and complaining about their - relatively trivial - dilemmas.

Anyways. Here are some of the things I found out.

• DC is the worst or second worst place to be in the US for applying to medical school, numbers wise (competing with California). Each state - and DC's - schools reserve a small number of seats for residents. DC has 3 Medical Schools, with 8 seats reserved total. There are usually ~65 applicants for those 8 seats, which leaves a 12% chance or so of getting in. It's a /little/ bit better, actually, since they'll have to accept around 12-15 people to ensure the seats get filled, so it's more like a 20% chance of getting into one of the three schools. Percentage wise, this number is as good as it will get. Out of state schools will be down towards 5-10%.
• I'll need around /five/ letters of recommendation. I'm a bit shocked by that, really - it's a lot. It's more than I was expecting. It's a good thing I went to some teacher's office hours last semester, or I'd be having a lot of trouble now. I can probably get at least one letter from an organization I've worked for (like my supervising charge-nurse at Georgetown Hospital, from when I volunteered there). Vanderbilt can provide me a cover letter, if I want, which is neat.
• My Grades are "ok", even from AU, but the MCAT is where I'll have to back it up, as I thought.
• Applying early is nice, but the benefits aren't going to outweigh doing better on the MCAT, even if just slightly. The problem - I'll have no idea how much extra time I'll need to study for the organic chemistry section of that test until it's a bit late. I might have to pick my MCAT date blindly, and hope for luck.
• Not having a ton of extracurriculars is sort of "ok", since I'm doing this out of law school instead of it having been my first path. I'll need a good explanation for leaving law school though (which is fine, I have one with the epilepsy... what's harder is explaining away my B- or so average in law school, which I'll need to show along with everything else. Uh oh.)
• MCAT scores: out of a possible 45 the national average is 26.1, the Vanderbilt student average is 29.9, and the average of students entering Vanderbilt's Medical school is 34.5, which is also the average for most of the other tops US medical schools (Harvard is 35.7, John Hopkins is 35.4, and Georgetown is 31.8. ... And just for the sake of including it since I went there for law, Emory Medical School's average entering MCAT score is 34.5 also). It's hard to list the minimum averages for other schools, since the number gets artificially lowered at state schools who reserve more slots for their applicants. 27-30 is probably a reasonable average for the lower end.

Right now, I'm leaning towards taking the April MCAT if at all possible. It will be nice to get to apply early, even if it doesn't help much, and it would be nice for schools with rolling admissions. It would also provide some buffer room for people sending in their letters of recommendation late, or what not, so the whole process would be a bit less stressful.

I'm not sure how I'll get my 5 letters of rec, how I'll "fix" physics, and how I'll explain away my bad average in law school. Luckily, I still have some time to work on that all. And I still have time to (hopefully) grab one more extracurricular between now and the time I apply.

As far as regular academic work goes, I'm staying busy. I have to get a lab report done up tonight (it's awful only having one day to work on them, because our labs are so close together w/ the summer schedule...), but I think the instructor will grade it gently. Next week, I have to take a "midterm" in Lab (not entirely sure what it is, but it's worth a bunch of my lab grade....) and a real exam on Wednesday. I'll be pretty busy this weekend studying for that, but I'm confidant I can get it done well.

It's hard to believe this course is half over already.

(First) Thoughts on the MCAT

So I said I would start thinking more about this test, now that it's becoming clear how important it will be to me (and now that the deadline is slowly but surely approaching).

In 2010 it was offered 26 times, from January to September. That sounds like a lot, but the optimal dates (especially for me) are a lot less. I want to be able to have finished my prereq. courses, but I also need to get it done early since I /really/ don't want to take it late, and have /another/ year of dead time between college version 2.0 and medical school.

Basically I'll need a date between April and August. There were 19 of those in 2010. I don't /think/ the new schedule for 2011 is up yet, but I need to check on that.

Taking the test in April means I'm /almost/ done with the second half of Organic Chemistry, and I've finished everything else. If I was a normal student it would leave me with very little actual MCAT study time - but since that semester I'll have nothing but the second half of Organic Chem going on, I could actually get a decent amount of studying done. April is early enough it lets me apply for early decision somewhere (although it's pushing that, a tiny bit), and is early enough I can be secure that I won't have any problems with regular application deadlines running late.

Taking it in August means I can't apply early. It's pushing it a little for regular deadlines, but should still work - although I'd be at a small disadvantage at schools with rolling admissions. On the other hand, taking it in August gives a lot of extra study time, and getting a high score is imperative.

Anything in between these two dates is a mix of the April/August option's benefits.

The web has a host of conflicting opinions about which choice is best. If anyone following this is looking for my opinion on which is best, I think the best choice is to ignore all the conflicting web-advice and make up your own mind. If you can't effectively make a simple decision like that, maybe you need to rethink your career choice.

As for which is best for me: April would probably be the number one option, although pushing it back into early May might be better if I decide to skip early decision applications at various reach schools. I'll talk to my pre-med advisor to get their input on how useful an early decision application would be. Other than that, I still have some months left to make my choice (although it's less than one year between now and the April test... a fact that's somewhat frightening).

Also: If I register as soon as possible, I might be able to make a 1pm test instead of an 8am test. That would be /awesome/.

Fuming. Over An A.

So yeah. We had our first Biology exam today and, actually, we got it back today. (It was a standard 90 minute exam, and our class is much longer than that. We watched a movie on DNA for the second 2/3 or so of class, while the teacher went through and graded everything - which was pretty impressive).

I got a 95, which - you'd think - I can't complain about. Well, technically it was a 93, but everyone got one question wrong. Apparently the decision was that it hadn't really been taught, and it was retroactively pulled from the test. Being me though, I can always complain.

I'm really mad because the few things I did get wrong were the /easy/ things. My studying was somewhat misguided for the test - I can go into much greater detail about some things than was required, but in spending my limited time like that I glossed over some of the really straightforward things. We had a few questions on those straightforward things. Getting those half-wrong is really embarrassing.

One of the questions I even knew the answer to (simple: list three differences between DNA and RNA). One of the differences I listed wasn't the "one" being looked for though. I knew the one being looked for - I even specifically wrote it down on the next page when I diagrammed how two nucleotides form a phosphodiester bond to create a polymer (the 2' carbon has an attached H in DNA, but an attached OH in RNA) - but I listed a different thing on that first question.

I kind of want to go and see if I can get credit.... but I don't want to seem like an awful person, complaining to the teacher over my 95. Especially since, ideally, this is someone I'm hoping to get to know well enough (and perform well enough for) that I can get a future letter of recommendation. ... A second option is to go - state that I knew the answer, and that my exam proves that fact - and also state that I don't want my grade altered at all, and just want to clear things up so I don't look like an idiot. ... that option might be even worse though, I'm not sure. It certainly makes me look a bit arrogant (which is probably kind of an accurate picture of me, if not the one I'd like to convey).

And the third thing that I'm fuming over is that it sounded like someone managed to get a perfect score, and it wasn't me; I'm supposed to. :: fume ::

As far as the test itself goes, it was a decent mix between my Super Easy Chemistry exams, where they were practically handed out before hand, and my Painful Crying Game Physics exams. The exam wasn't handed out in any form before hand, and it had a fair mix of questions on. It was also missing silly ammounts of extra credit (See Also: my 110%+ performances in Chemistry). I think these tests will give me a (fairly) good measure of where I'm at.

Well, all this said - what do I think of the outcome?

I guess I can't /really/ complain. A 95 will get me a 4.0 just as effectively as a 100 (although a 95 exam average would leave me just about no room for error in performing subpar in the lab). Also, given that I had less time to study for this than I'd have liked because of my family stuff, the outlook for the next test (should) be even better. That's an encouraging sign. And I now have a pretty good idea of how the tests are set up - I can try to not get so bogged down in the details, and focus a bit more on the big picture. It's not a bad start for the course, and I'm set up to do even better from here on out.

Certainly beats Physics, at any rate.

Information Overload

Well, the first week of Biology has gone by, and we've covered some eight chapters. Even more fun, we get our first exam tomorrow. Yay! I've taken copious notes in class, and have kept up with the reading, but there's just so much in there that I'm not ready. It hasn't helped that I've had a pretty busy week, and have been taking care of stuff for my family while they're out on vacation.

It's certainly not like Physics though. While there might be a ton of details, and I'm getting fed those details at an accelerated pace to get through it all in six weeks, its stuff that - given the time - I have no doubt I can understand just fine.

How this test comes out is up in the air. I have no clue what the test will be like, and this is the kind of thing you could make as easy or complicated as you desired (ie: if it's just over the basic points best covered in my notes, it should be pretty straight forward. If it goes into as much detail as the most detailed parts of our textbook, it should be very difficult). I'll find out soon, I guess. I'm certainly spending the rest of today working hard to memorize things and, fortunately, the test isn't until tomorrow evening. Which sort of means I can study for most of tomorrow as well.

The good news is that my family comes back tonight, so I'll have a good bit of extra time preparing for the next tests. Also, my pool is opening soon, which will give me a warm, pleasant, and quiet (during off-hours) place to do my studying at.

Already?

I said I'd take some time to reflect on how things were going, but classes are starting up again tomorrow before I've even had a chance to do much of that. It feels like thinks just ended the other day, really, and like this whole week hardly happened. Refreshed, I am not.

But we can still take a moment to try and look at things objectively. The worst (hopefully), is now over, and my GPA for this post-college adventure is still above a 3.60. I'll have to take some time to really calculate it, but I think it's closer to a 3.70. It's not awful, despite the fact that my B- was awful, since I've managed to keep pretty much everything else to a 4.00. Assuming Physics is the hardest course I have, that means my overall GPA will likely end up somewhere above 3.70, which is pretty respectable. How far above depends, but it should end up nicely.

I can't drop the ball. I need a 4.00 in every course where I can realistically get one, and I need to do the best I can everywhere else to keep my GPA going back up. But as long as I stay on top of my game, up is the most likely direction for it to go. It's also extra important that I do well now because 1) I'll need to find teachers to give me letters of recommendation in short order and 2) I need to be ready for the MCAT in ~18 months. With a decent GPA, my admissions chances are going to come down almost entirely to that entrance exam. If I do badly, and my 4.00's are revealed to be shams, I'm sunk. If I do well, I'm in (at least, in "somewhere").

I'd like to spend more MCAT study time working on Physics (which will be more like learning than reviewing), so it's imperative that I turn my next few courses into MCAT review courses.

Overall, I'm disappointed in how the last semester went. I did fine in Chemistry, but Physics was awful. Not only did I do badly in it (although I managed to avoid a C, at least) - I also gave up. The whole thing was very disheartening, and revealed a negative aspect of my character. Not getting the job I was after, on top of that, is just icing.

All disappointment aside, the semester wasn't an unmitigated disaster.

This summer is going to be pretty important. I need to take advantage of it to get back in things, and get a good step under my feet. I want to end up confident of a 4.00 in my course both sessions, so I can walk into the harder stuff at the end of this with some solid self-confidence (not to mention a boosted GPA). I also need to find something to do work/internship/volunteer-wise, /and/ I need to start worrying about the MCAT. I know I've said I need to worry about the MCAT before, but it's more true now than ever. And I've failed to really get involved with it so far, other than gaining an increasing appreciation for its value in the admissions process.

And The Results...

Grades are in for the semester: I got an A in Chemistry (4.0) and a B- in Physics (2.7). Both courses, as it turns out, were not curved (which honestly surprised me in Physics... I guess half the class has a C+ or lower in the end after all).

The A is great, but wasn't a surprise at all really. The B- is awful but... not a C? How awful it really ends up being depends a lot on how much I can get on track before the MCAT, and whether I can make sure all my other grades become 4.0s - especially Organic Chemistry in the Fall, which is supposed to be another "hard" course. If I can get an A in everything, that included, I can explain this semester of Physics away as "they should have said I needed to know how to do integrals...". Then I only have a mild problem. If I can't get an A in Organic, I have a serious problem.

Either way, medical schools will look really poorly on a B-, so my score on the MCAT becomes super-important.

The really annoying thing is that I genuinely don't know exactly where I stand. While neither class was curved, the Chemistry tests were practically handed out beforehand and were easy enough that the course may as well have just been curved up. I feel like I still got everything though... would I have gotten an A if that class was as hard as it was when I took it as a real undergraduate? I have no clue.

And Physics was hard, but without understanding integrals this semester I really was trying to get it done without half the tools. Should I be happy, or even impressed, that I managed to do well enough to avoid failing the course altogether given that situation? Or should I get hung up on an "awful" grade (from the med-school admissions point of view, at least).

... I don't know.

Either way, I still did well enough that there's no sense in quitting. I might as well keep pushing on, and I'll just see what happens.

In other news, it looks like my Biology course is a go. We still have no books up at the store, but the course got a room assigned to it, and is officially non-cancelled. I'm going to try and buy the book for Bio 220 (which I'm taking in the second half of summer), and I'll just hope the books are the same. It wouldn't be all that surprising if they were, and I'll need this book anyways eventually.

I'm Half-Way There

And I feel decidedly more exposed to science now than I did when this had just begun. I can explain why sunsets are red, how the chemical bonds in our eyes work to let us see, how ammonia is mass-produced, and some other pretty neat stuff too, actually. Even physics stuff.

The Chemistry final wrapped up the first half of my premed course-load this morning, and it wrapped it up on a nice note. It went well, and with any luck I managed to get a 100 on it. I'm not positive my Chemistry grade is a 4.0 at this point, because I did a good bit worse in lab than on the exams, but its looking quite possible that it turned out that way.

This is good, because with my Physics performance being what it has been, I really can't afford to be subpar in anything else if I'm going to have half a shot at getting into a medical school.

I'm not sure when I find out my official grades for both courses. Last time there was a pretty quick turn-around on that, so I'm hoping I don't end up waiting too long.

Now its time to move on. Biology starts. It should, at least. I checked the bookstore today, and apparently no one has ordered books for it. It also doesn't have a class-site up on the web, and I think its supposed to by now.

I don't know what that means, who's error it is, or if its an error at all. I'd assume that if the class was canceled, I'd have been notified by now (especially since I was billed for it....) but... who knows. I don't really want to worry about that for the next day or two anyways, so I'll drop it. It's not like there would be anything I could do to fix it, and I want to enjoy my time off. Once I've relaxed a bit, and gotten my grades back, I can try to reflect on how things have gone to this point, where they need to go, and how I can get them there.

Ps: Happy Summer Everyone. I changed the template up to something less bleak and more seasonal.

And Then There Was One

One test, that is.

Physics is now, if not out of my life forever, at least out of my life for the next six months. Now that's something I could toast to, if I didn't have more serious work just around the corner. It feels wonderful to be done though.

The test itself wasn't too bad. Not that I did well, I'm sure I didn't, but I didn't do any worse than I have on any of the last few tests. I may have done better, actually - even if just by a tiny margin. I don't know if I'll get the specific grade of this test back, or just my course grade, so I'll have to wait and see. Either way, the actual letter grade I'm getting in that course is a crapshoot. It could be anywhere from a C+ to an A-, I think.

Studying less for this test worked well enough. Maybe it's because I finally studied for it by just spamming through example problems, instead of trying to read the book and understand everything. As I was doing that extensively the other day, and as I was going through my old tests, I discovered something. It turns out that while surface integrals and line integrals might be integral to /Physics/, they probably weren't actually necessary for this course.

I mean, we talked about them, sure. And by understanding them you understand how everything is derived - I imagine that would be neat, if you were the kind of person who could understand it.

But just for the very mundane purposes of getting through this class I could probably have skimmed over most of this book - notably every part featuring an integral of every kind - and I wouldn't have had a much worse grade for it. The time saved would probably have got me a better grade, actually. I'd have learned how to "do" problems, without worrying about trying to learn how to "understand" the problems. It's a cheap way out, but I think it worked on this final (to an extent), and it's probably an approach I should have taken much sooner.

The other problem I had with the tests was just managing to sort through things in time. I froze up a bit more than I'd have liked, which led to me rushing things, which led to some mistakes that - in retrospect - were really not necessary.

But oh well. That's enough of Physics, until I find out what I actually ended up with.

I'd love to take some time off, but I have to get ready for that Chemistry final now. Like I said, its two chapters worth of stuff. I'm hoping to work on 1/2 of a chapter later today (happy reward nap first though - that clearly takes priority...), and then 1/2 of that chapter tomorrow. On Sunday, I can work through the last (and easier) chapter. That time table should work pretty well, if I wake up at a reasonable hour today. If not, I'm confidant I can get it all done over Saturday and Sunday, although that runs the risk of cutting it as close as it was on the last test.

The end is in sight though (well.... if you ignore Biology starting up in like, two weeks).

Before Finals

So, I didn't really study that much for this Physics final. I thought about it, and started, and realized that there was just no way I could reasonably expect to get a semester's worth of stuff in four days - especially when I hadn't got it before and had been putting a lot of work into it then.

So I let the studying slide a bit. Giving up is sad, and not particularly professional, but I just don't want to stress for hours and end up with a D on the test when I could take a much more relaxed approach and end up with a... D on the test. Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize things.

I'm going to work on it a bit today though. I bet there'll be one or two questions from our old exams, so I'll go over those. And I have a feeling about one or two more questions I think we'll be asked, so I'll try to get a handle on that specific stuff as well. A point here and a point there, to try and keep my grade a high D. I'll just hope that when all is said and done, I'll end up with some kind of a B in the course. I have no clue how much our grades will get curved, so I'm just going to be stuck waiting. If I get a C in the class, I think I could have a very serious problem with my applications. If I manage to get any kind of B though, as awful as that will look, I think I'll be able to slide by /if/ I find a way to fix my Physics between now and the point I take the MCAT.

I'm not exactly sure how I'd fix it - that's easier said than done. But 1 year+ is a good deal of time, and now I have a good idea of what the Physics on the test will be like (and a good base to start reviewing/studying from). If I was able to "reteach" myself math for Calculus over a six-month period or so, I'm hoping I can "reteach" myself Physics when given the same ammount of time to focus on it.

As far as this final goes, it will just be nice to get it over with, even though I'm going to walk out with an unhappy feeling. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: "D is for Done".

I'll have to work really hard on chemistry immediately after this test. Redox equations take a bit of thought, but it's nothing I can't handle. I'm certainly fortunate in only having to take the short-version final on two chapters, so I'm pretty sure I can get ready for that in the two/three days I have - it'll just be a very busy few days.

Last Physics Class, EVER!

That is all.

(Physics itself won't vanish, sadly. Still have the Final and the MCAT. No more classes in it for the rest of my life though, if I can help it.... at least not until I've had a chance to do more calculus first >.<)

Finals

So, I need to double check to make absolutely sure this is correct, but it looks like I'm having my Physics final at 8:30 AM on Friday April 30th, and then having my Chemistry final at 8:30 AM on Monday May 3rd at 8:30 AM.

All in all, that's not a horrible set up. It would be nice if I had Chemistry first so I didn't have to study for it after feeling bummed out over Physics, but at least I'll have a whole weekend to get my stuff together for Chemistry. Since it's only two chapters I need to study, I probably won't really start worrying about it too much until (right) after the Physics exam.

Between now and next Friday, I have a lot of Physics to get to. I don't really know how to approach it, and I'm sure it's not going to go well, but I'll work at that really hard over the next week - hey, it's the last week I'll ever have to suffer through a test in that class, so I might as well go out in style.

I have a few other odds and ends to wrap up, but this is pretty much it. My Biology course will start on Monday May 10th, so I can look forward to a week off before that gets underway. Once I get over finals though, and rest up some, I really need to get back to looking for some form of gainful employ. It looks like my last idea didn't pan out - probably because I filled in something badly - but I should find something to be doing besides part-time courses.

Chem Test In

Well, I got a 90% on the Chem test. It's not great but, all things considered, it's not half bad either really. It came in above the average by a bit, and is pretty respectable for a test I took on no sleep and was working on until the last second.

Labs are over now, both Physics and Chemistry. Finals are coming up shortly, although I don't actually have the dates in stone yet. Physics is next Friday (I think), the 30th. I'm not sure about Chemistry. Chemistry shouldn't be /too/ bad to study for, since I get the shortened final. Physics will simply be awful though. It covers everything, and I'm well aware that I won't get a good score on it no matter how much time I put in at this point. I'm just trying to not get a zero... D is for done, right?

I'm really exhausted, but am going to have to work hard on getting in shape for finals starting in a day or two anyways. I might as well give it whatever's left in the tank, and then I can spend a week or two doing absolutely nothing before Biology starts.

Spoon to Caffeine de~

This Chem test was a bit of an ugly affair. I wasn't good to go until an hour beforehand, literally. Not that I hadn't been studying. I've been keeping up with the work quite well, and started studying hard for this test a few days back. I wasn't getting one of the sections though, so I plugged at it. On. And On. And On. It turns out I ended up deciding it would be worth plugging away at it through the night rather than getting some decent sleep.

So I did that, and made really slow progress. After a certain point, you can't really take any more. So you're reading doing problems for 2 hours, then a break. 90 Minutes, break, 60 minutes, break, until you can't keep focus for more than 30 minutes or so and you're exhausted, have a head ache, and dried out eyes.

Every hour or so though, something would manage to "click", which was super fun. If only that worked in Physics too....

I don't know how the test itself went. It certainly didn't go badly, and I'm sure I came in above that 58% mark I need to take the shortened final, if nothing else. I put down a few answers I didn't have absolute faith in, though, and I was so tired at that point it's entirely possible I may have glossed over a negative sign or something in a problem at one point or another. But overall I think the test went well, and I'm pleased I managed to get everything figured out nicely (even if it took until the very last second).

So what next? Relax and enjoy success? Hardly.

I'm going to crash now, because I can't stay up anymore while getting things done. When I wake up, I'll have to do a ton of Physics work as well as write up Physics Lab I don't understand at all. It'll probably take all of tomorrow night (tonight?) as well, actually. Then on Saturday I have to get a really important Chem lab written up too. After that, I (think) I'll have at least one week without too much going on. I can use that time to figure out the schedule of my finals, and set up plans on how to approach those. Sigh.

Oh well. At least I can be comfortable knowing I'll feel right at home if I get hauled off to Gitmo for questioning in the middle of the night.

Raising the Stakes

I'm feeling pretty burned out at this point. It's probably because I spent so much time working on Physics, and got very little out of it. And I've been doing that the whole semester (plus working really hard with Chemistry, although that part's gone well at least). Right now though, I'm feeling a bit dazed, and just really want the whole thing over with. Not that that will actually happen, with summer courses, but I want /this/ semester to just draw to a close - stat.

This summer shouldn't be so bad. It should feel like a fresh start, I'm hoping. And it should be a little less frustrating.

That said, it looks like my upcoming Chemistry exam just got a bit more important. If I can keep my exam average over a 90% after taking this one, I get to take a short six question final exam that's only on the last two chapters we cover. Otherwise, I'm stuck taking a long final that will be much harder to study for.

A six question final obviously has downsides - mess up one question badly, and your grade goes south really fast - but making it so I only have to study two chapters for the final instead of... 12 or so.... that would save me a lot of time and worry.

As things stand, it looks like this means I need a 58% on the next exam (which, you'd think, shouldn't be too hard to manage) to take the shortened final (ie: to have a 90% average going into the final). Of course, I'd like a 100% on the next exam anyways.