My First Exam

I’ve got my first test coming up tomorrow. It’s in my Chemistry class (Chem 1110), and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m a little nervous, and a little not. On the one hand, I think I’ve done a fair amount of study and prep work. An additional benefit is that the professor is letting us use a single 3x5 index card as a crib sheet. We can write whatever we want on it. He’s not going to tell us what to write, and it has to be handwritten. On the other hand, this is the first college level exam I’ve had to take in years. I’m a bit out of practice.

This test is going to be on basic chemical issues such as the states of matter and its classifications, chemical reactions, chemical elements and symbols, and the periodic table. It’s also going to cover basic factors in the measurements of chemical properties and the math behind them. Because this is a class primarily for health science students, it’s also going to cover some basic functions of the various elements essential to life: the major four (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen) as well as 21 different trace elements.

It’s that last bit that has me worried, so you can guess what kinds of things I’ve scribbled on my crib sheet!

I’m also crappy and remembering conversion rates, like Celsius to Fahrenheit and pounds to kilograms as such. Metric and SI units are so much easier to deal with than Standard Imperial units. It makes me wish I was studying in Europe so I wouldn’t have to deal with the conversions.

It’s ironic, though. I thought the test was today, so I had all this planned in advance. It turns out that we had a review today, instead. Good thing, too. I hadn’t thought to include the functions of the various trace elements as part of my crib sheet. To be honest, I didn’t think we’d be tested on them. Turned out I was wrong. Of course all that does is leave me an extra day to stress over the test.

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. Wish me luck!