BitterSweetLife

Or....The Newest, Darkest Era In My Academic Career

Normally, getting exams back is a little like Christmas. You’ve made your list, checked it twice, turned it in, and viola!—you got what you asked for, with a few delightful variations. (The accompanying wait—for Christmas and for exams to be returned—is also similar.) Today, however, a grim new chapter opened in the happy, movie-script-ending story called “My Test Experiences.”

I am incredulous to report that on my latest exam, in my toughest class, I just notched the lowest grade I’ve had on a test in five years. And the five years simply refers to my undergraduate experience, so it would also be true to say this is the lowest graded I’ve received ever.

The surreal flavor of this outcome is still registering.

Matters were made worse this morning by the fact that my exam had somehow been misplaced. My professor’s stat sheet revealed my abysmal score, but as all my classmates checked their mailboxes for the red-streaked remains, my box was glaringly empty. For a few minutes, it seemed perfectly logical: the test was too awful to exist. However, my initial amusement led to an increasingly angst-ridden journey from my professor’s office to the academic secretary to the business office, then back to my mailbox—and all in vain.

Finally, in the late afternoon, the missing exam magically and randomly appeared in my mailbox. Too relieved to ask questions, I began the postmortem and preceded to diagnose the cause of my death. The carnage exceeded my worst expectations—but then, it would have to, since my score obliterated my most pessimistic predictions. Incredibly, I lost a cool 20 points on misreading/misinterpretation issues, 15 of them on an ambiguously worded question.

Appeals are pending, but it will take a Herculean effort to rebound from this fiasco. The final is still two weeks away, and I'm already pumping iron.