Wicked Wednesday

Oh Wednesday - there aren't enough W adjectives to describe you. I knew this was coming. I was still not prepared. No class today - instead, 3 midterms pretty much back to back! First we had Qual/Quant - I'm in Quant this semester, so it's more statistics based but we all have to take both eventually. But we were all in one big room but divided up, because Dr Pickens was proctoring both classes. She mentioned beforehand that the Quan one would be quicker, so she said, "I'm going to hand out the quant exam first." For whatever reason, I decided to look over at the Qual people and say, "In your face!" Some people laughed - I think others were just thinking, "yep, she's a weirdo." Anyway - Dr. Neville is a great person - she's really funny, and clearly very smart and likely a great therapist. However, her teaching style confuses most. So does her questioning style. Some of the questions didn't actually have a question. Some just didn't make sense. and on one, the right answer was not a choice! Anyway, I ended up with a B on that one, which is A-Okay with me. As you may or may not know, stat is not my favorite anything. Next we had the big event - the one and only Peds exam. This isn't like any other exam you've seen, folks. In the 20 years I've had tests, I've never had one that looks like this. Before I explain, let us consider what a test is typically designed to be:
1) fair and equal to all students
2) a test of your knowledge based on lectures and readings
3)clear and concise
Keep these in mind as you read below!
Ok, so here was how the peds test was supposed to go:
We had 1 hour, it was on the computer, and we couldn't go back once we answered a question. Questions were not necessarily stuff that has been covered in class or even mentioned in the book, and they were randomly selected from a "bank" the teacher wrote and are varying degrees of difficulty. We could use our book, notes, internets, whatever except other people. But here's where it gets really messed up: We had to answer at least 50 questions correctly to "pass"; Questions answered incorrectly didn't penalize us. We had to answer at least 60 questions total (so in other words...if I answer 120 questions randomly and get 50 of them right, I pass. If I answer 75 and get 50 right, I pass.) More than one answer could be correct, but we had to pick the one that was "more correct" even though OT doesn't have a lot of concrete definitions and there are lots of theories, so different texts have different answers. So, basically, why would I waste my time looking up something when I can just randomly guess and essentially move onto the next question with a chance I'd get it right, anyway? And one of my favorite classmates, Aaron (Mere you know him as Notben), says, (to the teacher) "So, if I just go through and answer C for every question, and I get 50 right, I pass?" - yep. awesome. That was back when she said the bank would have like 300 questions, though.
This is what actually happened:
We were divided into 2 groups - one took the lecture exam on the computer, the other took the lab exam on paper, and we switched. There are 36 of us - and we were all in a room that holds max 30 when it's really full. Some people had to use their own laptops because there weren't quite enough computers. Once she gave us the password to start, we could start whenever - the computer kept track of the hour. I waited for everyone to get settled, then started. 3 minutes in, 3-4 people start complaining that the password wasn't working. So teacher went to try to figure it out. Not at all distracting. After about 15 minutes, people in the center started to finish their lab exams, so they turned them in and wrote their name on the board for the next available computer (despite the fact that we all started within 4 min of each other, so we'll all be done at the same time anyway!). THEN Blackboard starts crashing on everyone around me - the next question won't pop up. Page won't load. It logged me out. etc. So Teacher is frantically talking to them trying to get it to work. Meanwhile, I've literally got my hands over my ears trying to read the questions because everyone around me is TALKING (totally don't blame them, by the way - it's the set up). When there are distractions, my focus is like zero. Anyway, so about 20 min in, I see that I've answered 50 questions, so I figure I've got time to actually look stuff up since there are 133 questions total. And then I realize...I've had this question before. and this one. and THIS one. So I ask, is that supposed to happen? No. Turns out, she didn't program it right - either the questions got loaded multiple times, or they just didn't set on "no repeats". So the 133 question test is now an inifinity test. After 150 questions or so I was actually getting pretty tired - I almost wanted to quit, but what would be the point in that. By then, I had so many repeats I knew what the question was based on the first 3 words - so click click click and an hour goes by and I answered 283 questions. Bravo! But - OOOOOOO - the computer timer does not shut off. Indeed, it just keeps going! Hmmm...what do I do? So someone tells her, and she doesn't know what to do, but we can't just keep going, so she tells us to log out. Who knows if it saved? I still don't know if it did!
So we traded with the other guys, and I was taking the lab test in the center. Wait a second...some of these questions - I know these! Yep, sure enough, they were on the computer part. Therefore, MY group had had the opportunity to look the answers up in the book, so we'd know which ones were right. The other group didn't, and the lab portion was closed book. Another reason they should pissed. Anyway - yay! Trainwreck exam! We won't find out howwe "did" until after Spring Break. I have a feeling this won't be a repeat performance.