Do Over

Last month, I took a final for a class and didn't do so hot. When I walked out, I thought I had a solid B on the exam. More like a low C. In a sign of how your mindset changes once you're in a terminal degree program, I thought 'Oh well, so I get a C in the class.'

The professor had other plans. Those of us who got C's were offered the opportunity to retake the exam. One of my friends did hers this morning, I did mine this afternoon.

As I worked through it the first time, I thought "oh crap, I am going to do worse on this one!", but skipped over things I absolutely did not know. Then I went through a second time and picked up a few more, and as I worked, memories of definitions were jogged, or one question provided one half of a puzzle and another the other half. (What is Cronbach's Alpha", then What is the internal consistency coefficient on this study?) By the third time through, there were only three things that I was totally stumped on, and at two points each, I thought I could leave them alone-then one popped into my head. I guessed at the other two.

This time, I'm not confident in my results, but I feel a lot better about it than I did when I went through it the first time...