I think it is safe to say that this one did not go so well… That being the case, I think it would be a good time to re-assess and reflect on my performance so that I can improve for next time.
One thing that I should do next time is to read through the questions and do the lengthiest questions first to give myself more time to think about them. That way I won’t feel rushed to complete them at the end. I panicked and I think that it shows in my answers. I became more concerned with just filling space in each question rather than stopping to actually consider that what I was writing was correct.
I studied the wrong material, I didn’t actually preview the practice questions until the day prior to the exam. I made the assumption that the course reading would play a bigger role in the exam and so I spent a fair bit of time reviewing the course readings and trying to focus on understanding the specifics that went into the papers. Rather than doing that I should have focused on clearing up lecture material that I didn’t understand and possibly focusing on the lecture questions, making sure that I understood the biology behind the conclusions that we made in class.
I did reasonably well (by my standards anyway) on the first two questions. I was tripped up by the 3rd and I didn’t have enough time to properly consider the 4th as there was a lot of information in the description of that question and I was in full on panic mode at that point.
You would think that by 4th year I would know how to properly prepare for exams.