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Hi TL, I just got my first semesters exam grades back from my final year of CS, and before I had gotten them back, I felt quietly confident on the results, as none of the exams had any particularly difficult parts of the exams, and I was able to answer the questions without a lot of thinking required.
The results are released, and every single one of them says I just barely scraped above a fail mark.
I don't even understand how this is...
I put in a LOT of time to revise over christmas (even revising on christmas day for them), and I was confident of doing well in the exams, but then I just get knocked back into the stone age with results that scream "lack of effort".
I'm just all upset over it, and have absolutely no clue of what I can even do better. I mean I do practice papers, I cover all the material. I have a revision schedule I adhere to, and I don't go to bed at an abnormally late hour for the exam the next day.
Has TL got any suggestions I can use to try and improve on any of this? I just feel really shitty and dumb, because of it.
I managed to score a job for when I graduate, but I'm scared that they may just revoke that if they discuss my results. 
I've always struggled with exams, but the knowledge, and applying it in coursework or classwork based scenarios is always my strong point.
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Talk to your tutor or lecturer in charge to get feedback about your results. Most likely they will tell you what went wrong and give you advice about your situation.
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Yep tutors, lecturers, your classmates.
Sounds like it could just be a case of poor exam technique, not knowing how to provide the answers in the correct way that examiners are looking for.
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Thanks for the advice. I'll have a meeting with my advisor about it next week and discuss it to see where I can go from here.
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What the above said, also look at the average. This is what I have done since going into engineering as marks are almost fairly low. If I get a 60% which is just fair, but the average is a 40% I usually feel quiet good about myself in knowing that.
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Don't know if you can have a look at your exams after the grading, but at my university we're allowed to look at the exam and the notes the grader (dunno if that even is a word..the person who grades your exam), which usually should give you a lot of insight.
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On February 24 2012 23:28 drsnuggles wrote:
Don't know if you can have a look at your exams after the grading, but at my university we're allowed to look at the exam and the notes the grader (dunno if that even is a word..the person who grades your exam), which usually should give you a lot of insight.
It's tricky and depends on the course, university and country you're in I guess. I remember a lecturer (who also marked some exams) telling me that they have so many papers to mark they often skim over, or even just look at maybe 3 or 4 answers out of 10 (for example) and give a grade based on that. What was worse was that they did similar things for dissertations which have a huge effect on your final grades in some courses, they read the intro, conclusions and looked at the references and bibliography before deciding on a mark, so basically miss out the largest sections like methodology and analysis.
That's why presentation and knowing exactly what the examiners are looking for is so important and also why exams are certainly not the best way to ascertain how much a student has learnt during their course.
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Ask people who know you. Tutor, class mates, family.
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Sometimes we concentrate so much on the most complex of things, we forget that we sometimes need to fix the basics.
At uni I felt that I knew the material. While presenting orally, I always had high marks and the grader always said I knew what I was talking about. However, when it came to writing my answers, my grades were poor.
One day my thesis supervisor told me that he knew I knew what I wanted to say, but when he read my thesis drafts he had no idea what I was talking about. He then lent me a book on writing gracefully. There I realised I had to learn how to write in a comprehensible way before communicating what I know.
From what I read from you, it seems like you know the material. How are you delivering it?
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It could be that you are not in touch with what exactly they expect. Meaning, you may know and understand the material (hopefully), but not the proper way to interpret questions and what you are required to write on them. Get some of your supervisors to review your works (don't be embarrassed) and explain to you what you've missed. GL!
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EPT
