I’ve discussed all of my classes except the last one: Astronomy. And I can discuss it now because it turns out that my exam in that class is today! I thought it was next week, but it is actually today. Am I worried because I have a week less study time than I thought? Nope. Why? Because this exam, unlike certain others, is open book. I had planned on rewatching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos this weekend to freshen my mind, but even without that I think I’ll do alright.

In spite of my hatred of doing mathematics, I took the Astronomy class because I know I need a science class for my degree. I have since realized that my History class would probably have counted toward that, but whatever, I didn’t have people talking me through it when I chose my classes, though I clearly should have. Anyway, I don’t regret taking the class. The math involved is pretty basic and only comes up occasionally. Test questions are mostly multiple choice, the professor is quite good, I have a genuine interest in the material. All in all, I’d see myself going into a second year Astronomy class before I continued with History. (Though, in fact, I’ll probably do neither)

We’ve had two tests in class, closed book, and I’ve averaged about 75% on those, I think. Take home assignments, more math heavy, but open book, I’ve had an average of around 90%. This exam is apparently a combination of the two styles, so I’m pretty confident going into this that I’ll do fine.

Post Exam Update: Okay, that was more like it. I feel reasonably confident that I’m in the 75 to 85% on that exam. It was largely multiple choice questions and I used my book to look up even those I thought I knew already. While I probably did still get a few wrong, I suspect I did well. There was also the mathematical question that I wrestled with for almost an hour. I probably messed that one up, but I’m bound to get a few points for trying. And anyway, while the troublesome question on yesterday’s exam was worth half the grade, this troublesome question was equal to all the other thirty questions. I don’t feel like it was too bad.

One peril of open book tests I noticed, though, was that I occasionally became distracted when I found something interesting in the book that was unrelated to the exam. Of all the textbooks I had to buy for this schoolin’, the Astronomy one is the easiest to enjoy flipping through, I think.