Impressions on Midterm Exams
By Jessica Maes
My first semester of graduate school midterm exams are officially in the books! Every week of this semester has been been a new adventure since this is my first year of grad school. I don’t know what I don’t know about so. many. things. Luckily, you learn a lot about perspective when you study sport psychology and it’s been a great reminder that we can’t always know everything about everything all the time…and that’s ok.
Midterms are a big deal in general, and a pretty big undertaking in the SEPP program at Uiniversity of Wisconsin – Green Bay. Midterms for my cohort consisted of two written exams and one project this semester. Here are 10 of my impressions about midterm exams, in general and within this program, in no particular order:
The goal is demonstating an understanding of the course content. Yes, there are some right and wrong answers. However, there are far more “it depends” answers in my area of study, and that’s when you need to explain why something is the way it is or is not. My exams were open notes so it wasn’t a matter of memorizing things (thank goodness!), it was a matter of understanding everything we have covered these past seven weeks and explain that within the context of the questions asked on the exams.
There were no surprises. My professors gave us study guides in advance of the exams and if you put in the work to fill in all the blanks of the study guide, you were in very good shape because everything that was on the exams was covered in the study guides.
Professors want you to succeed. I have never not thought this in my program, however, the fact that we are always given everything we need to be successful whether it’s weekly assignments or midterm exams is evidence that the professors want us to have success within this program and beyond.
Nothing is given. While there were no surprises on my midterm exams and project, not studying/preparing was not an option. I spent hours completing the study guides and working on my project.
You have to understand the game you are playing. I decided this was the key to success in just about anything long ago and the same is true with midterm exams. There is a certain window of time when you can take the exam (we had a one day window for one and a three day window for the other), there is a time limit (we had four hours to take each exam), and you have to produce original work for essay questions (more on this below!).
Demonstating understanding means using your own words. It seems obvious, but you can’t copy paste testbook information to answer questions. This can become tricky when you are seven weeks in and you can’t remember what in your notes may be pulled straight from another resource! In hindsight, my tip is to make a mark in your notes when something is straight from a source or, don’t ever put something from source in your notes. The latter is ideal becaus putting answers in your own words requires you to “figure it out” in a way that you understand and can communicate to others!
You will likely need many hours to prepare. I have been very engaged all semester and I still needed many hours to feel adequately prepared for my midterm exams and project. Even if you are simply transferring information from your notes to the study guide, it will save you time to have everything in one sport for an exam.
Four hours goes by in a snap. When I sat down to take my first exam, I told my husband I figured I would need about half of the time allotted. I ended up needed just about every minute. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the material. But it wasn’t uncommon to need 15-20 min to thoroughly answer a question.
Have perspective/don’t panic. When I was an undergraduate student, it was not even the norm to have a computer at your home so taking online exams was not even a thought back them. Now, it’s the norm. It’s not all that difficult to navigate online education platforms like Blackboard and Canvas, but doing anything the first time is usually clunky. On my first exam I was working hard to dot all of my i’s and cross all of my t’s and when I finished, I scrolled slowly to the top of the page, only to discover that I have inadvertantly skipped a question. I simply didn’t see it. I have about five minutes left and it would be nearly impossible to produce an answer to one of these questions in five minutes and receive full credit. I was so angry at myself, and then I reminded myself that this is far from the end of the world and I will likely never do this again now that I have done it. Stuff happens and as long as you do your best from the day the semester starts until the day it ends, you will likely be just fine academically.
Have gratitude. If you have the opportunity to pursue an education at any level and you choose to do so, that’s a win in my book. Learning is an ongoing process and for those of us who get to do it every day, it’s pretty amazing and awesome.
Jessica is a first-year master’s student in the Sport, Exercise, & Performance Psychology program at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin – Parkside and is currently a Writing Tutor at The Learning Center at UWGB. She is also certified as a grant writer from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and from Learn Grant Writing. Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn.
