Bohemia Bunny

Prognostications Sem 2 06/07

May 3rd, 2007 by lynnylchan under School Life

PL3241: Personality and Individual Differences

Optimistic: B

Pessimistic: C

I bombed the lab report for this one, which will undoubtedly pull down the final grade. My class participation wasn’t all that fantastic either, but maybe there’s less class variation on that measurement, so that has less impact.

The paper was at Temasek Hall, so I completed my collection of taking papers at other halls, with the exception of Raffles and King Edward VII because I don’t take Engineering or Science modules.

The paper was doable, it wasn’t a WTF moment. Although the exit comments among the others were “I had nothing to write” and stuff along that line. It’s true, for the second question on Freudian development of personality, I had 1.2 pages and that was that. The lecturer did say to go for concision, but surely that is rather scanty for 30 marks?

This module is already beyond hope, so I’m just hoping that the final paper will rescue me from the quagmire caused by the lab report. It’s really just a case of barely surviving.

PL4207: Social Psychology: Theories and Methods

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B-

One of two modules which I’m taking with the same lecturer whose module was responsible for my bombed Sem 1. I bear him no grudges, however, because maybe I really did do a crummy job. I did okay on the midterm quiz, although my class participation will probably be a bit low because he told me I wasn’t as vocal as some other people. Our presentation was all right, so that might help a bit. Or perhaps not, because I think everyone’s presentations were all right so that variable isn’t going to help discriminate us on the bell curve.

The paper was fine, in fact I hope I didn’t write too much for the first question - I overflowed to 4 pages and he did say 2-3, but I wanted to cover more ground and be more thorough. I planned everything out nicely so it would at least have some semblance of ‘flow’ and not some random assortment of ideas churned out via memory dump.

As he collected the papers (our class has an enrolment of 50 and we were sharing the hall with at least 2 other classes) the lecturer asked each one of us how we found the paper. My reply was a sheepish grin and a mumbled “uhh”. Yes, not much brain juice left after 2 hours of frantic work.

I’m feeling good about this module, but I had a good feeling about the last one I took under him too, and look where that got me. For a level-4000 module, I should be happy to just get a decent middling grade, because I am a small 3rd year minnow swimming in the big 4th-year kids’ pond.

PL3238: Social Cognition

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B

I think I did okay for this one, but I wasn’t in the zone the whole day. The first of 2 consecutive papers, it wasn’t difficult but I didn’t feel the words flowing out, that’s why I say I wasn’t in the zone.

I did fine for the CA component, although I think we bombed the class presentation (I had way too much caffeine and sugar) plus I wasn’t very vocal in class. It’s going to be hard to justify an A- for this paper as my final answer script had entire paragraphs cancelled out when I realised I was quoting the wrong research study. Bleah. Such errors and omissions do not bode well for making a good impression on the examiner.

I must say I’m a bit disappointed by my performance on the final paper, it wasn’t as though I didn’t know the material which is essentially a repeat of PL4207. In the end, all I can say is I wasn’t feeling it. Sigh.

PL3239: Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B

Another lacklustre paper. I usually slept through the lectures for this one, and stoned my way through the tutorials, so I doubt anything mentioned during class time went in. The only things I learned were whatever I crammed in during the studying for the 2 class quizzes, which may save my ass in the end.

The 2nd of 2 consecutive papers, I was just wishing to get to the end of this and have my mini-break. Even though the first question was on an oft-repeated topic, it threw many of us off because of the integration needed. Doable, but not brilliant. I also couldn’t find any research findings to back up my points - or rather, I didn’t (and couldn’t) memorise the names. I mean I could probably bring up the relevant reading but I couldn’t cite the author. I hope that won’t count for much.

I was just quite numb throughout the whole paper, and even though I went through the questions again and tried to find the answers in my lecture notes, I wasn’t successful. I give up, I don’t care, I have to move on with my life.

PL4214: Evolutionary Psychology

Optimistic: A-

Pessimistic: B-

Urgh. I had 3 to 4 days to study for this one, but I crammed it all into 2 days. Serves me right for procrastinating and reading webcomics when I could have been studiously analysing the inherited mental processes of humans.

The questions were perfectly doable, but where I bombed on this one was time management. I took 45 minutes to finish my rough draft for both essays, this must be a new record. I wanted the layout to make sense, see. But that doesn’t take three-quarters of an hour!

I just couldn’t focus. My mind kept wandering, and it was probably because I couldn’t sleep the night before. I went to bed at 2am, hoping to catch a solid 6 hours, but at 3 am I was so wide awake I could have written my essay then. I tried to put myself to sleep by playing DS in bed, but no go. It might have been the fault of the 3pm cup of coffee, but I doubt caffeine stays in the system that long. When my alarm went off at 8am I leapt out of bed, fully alert. I did sleep, and I even got some REM (because I remember saucy dreams about Draco Malfoy, mmm) and I just don’t know what’s wrong with my bioclock.

The first question for 60 marks was an evaluation question which I had sort of spotted, so that was fine. Neatly written too. The 2nd question was up to me, and again I chose #3. I’ve been choosing #3 for the other papers as well, it’s a little bit freaky. Anyway it was on violence. I crossed out an entire paragraph when I realised it didn’t jive, it was on aggression and while violence is a subset of aggression, it is not the same as explored in my essay. Bah.

And one of the theories I remembered, but didn’t put into the essay due to bad organisation, turned out to be wrong after all, so that was fine. Not to my credit at all, but fine. It was a horrible, horrible essay though. Messy and incoherent.

I don’t know how this is going to be graded, the class has 44 people or thereabouts so a bell curve is theoretically possible. No idea how I did on the term paper as we handed it up only 2 weeks ago and the lecturer didn’t send out any emails regarding collecting our papers. I’ll just be really pessimistic and hope for a decent grade that at least reflects what I learned. Evo psych is fun, it’s controversial but the readings were easy to read (as compared to dry research papers) and used properly, you can amaze your friends with your bizarre but empirically proven reasons behind human behaviour. I just wish it could explain why I’ve been crashing and burning all year.

*Edited* Nods to Agagooga for recommending this module to me. He took it as a USP module, so that’s your academic-cred rating right there. It’s meant for those extra-smart boffins, so you should take it just to feel smart too! But make sure you don’t end up in the same class as those people, that’s just academic suicide.