Take-Home Exams

I'm just taking a break at the moment from my take-home exams. I really have a dislikening for take-home exams at the moment. From the 10 courses I took during my third year of university, I can count on one hand how many final exams I actually had to study for. The total number of final exams I had to study for? Four. That's right folks, four. The rest of my final exams were take-homes. I'm not counting mid-terms because (gosh darn it), I think I only had 3 out of 10 courses. I either didn't have a mid-term exam or a paper or assignment substituted for the mid-term.

So yes...I guess you can say that I've had to write 6 take-home exams. As with all take-home exams, it is not just one question that I have to answer, but rather, numerous questions. I once had a prof tell my class that take-homes are not a big deal because all you do is sit still for 3 hours and answer the question like a real exam! Well, guess what prof...that ain't the case most of the time. At the moment, my 2 take-home exams that are due on the 7th and 9th of August, respectively, involve a little bit of research and synthesis. Therefore, I need to spend some time gathering all of my information and taking notes. And then afterwards, write the darn thing in good coherent sentences. In a real 3-hour exam, you already have all your information memorized and the prof is sometimes more leanient when it comes to coherence; knowing that you only have three hours to do everything.

My belief with a take-home exam is that the professor tends to mark you a little harder because you have the time to go over your essay(s) and make the argument more coherent since you are under "less" stress. Therefore, if I want to do a good job on these take-homes, I must spend some quality time with them. I cannot simply spend 3 hours on a take-home and expect a good mark. That would be stupid. I spend at least 3-4 days studying for an exam (albeit...not all 24 hours, but you get the point that I should be ready to write), so for a take-home, I believe I should spend the equivalent time preparing and writing it.

Anyway, I received my POL3115 take-home exam via e-mail this morning and started working on it right away. Turns out one of the questions (I have 3 choices) in the 'Empirical Section' was based on the panel presentation I did a few weeks ago. Boo-yah! So, that part was pretty easy to write. I just basically had to regurgitate what I presented into nice coherent argumentative sentences. Hehehe. Rough draft is already done. The second question that I chose to answer in the 'Theoretical Section' (again, I get a choice out of 3) is about gender and development. I did my article critique on gender and development, so that will be less research for me. The problem is, I'm not a big fan of theoretical questions so this puppy will take a little while to do. I intend to make some notes tonight and then work on it all day tomorrow. Sunday will be putting the finishing touches and editing and Monday morning will also be reserved for some editing, if required. Then I hand the puppy in between 3-4:30pm.

I've also been diligently working on my other take-home exam for POL3511 during the past week. It's not really an exam where I have to synthesize what we learned in the course, but it's more of a continuation of an assignment I completed early in the semester about small arms and light weapons. This one is due on Wednesday at 4pm so I still have some time, but I already have some sections completed. However, I'm going to need to spend a lot of time editing because I have absolutely no interest in the topic and looking over what I have written so far, is pretty much all jibberish and rubbish. Oh well....I currently have a 84% in that course (surprisingly) so I'm not too worried, but I still want to do well and hopefully pull of an A in the course.

This will probably be my last post until next week. Til then, be safe and have fun in the sun,
-Lydia