A Downfall and An Uplift (Part 3 of the series)

I had a post last year entitled "A Slap On My Face", where I shared my reflections on a Biology class. It was followed by "Chaoses On My Day", where I wrote about the first day of our second quarterly test the next day. Both of the posts turned out to be a series of stories of a struggling week I had then. Therefore, I wrote 2 posts to follow up these two, but unfortunately I neglected publishing them. But now, having the chance, since it's semestral break, I'm going to share to you those posts, but I'll advise you to read the mentioned posts first.

Without further ado, here's the first one.

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"1 down...2 to go." One of my classmates said that on her post on our Facebook group page. We all had to face 2 more days of examinations.

I had a quiet, focused and faithful review for our Thursday's set of tests. I did what I could do to prepare myself for those tests..

I reached school earlier than Wednesday...It was quiet, since we are only few yet inside the classroom. The volume in our simple room would increase as more classmates went inside and bade their "hi", except for some, just like me.

Nevertheless, I had a smooth review of our own language—Filipino. It was a nice start. It was a good review of notes at last!

Then, there it was. The examinations. The teacher with a cap went to our room. He had the papers, and he passed it on by row. We held on our papers, and we held on our pens. We started answering.

We went on. We answered our own papers well. That was a good start again. But of course, we thought of our answers making it sure that they're correct. Besides, it's our mother tongue that we're all answering about.

We all waited for the "pass-your-papers" signal. 

After we passed our papers, we went on reviewing for one major test—Bio. I had noticed lately that I could review before we begin.

As the proctor told us, we closed all our notes and books. We all gripped on the hope we had for a good score.

When I take tests, I always have this rule: take your time. I always do it. But I'm also trying to make the most out of my time..For me, doing it on this major subject test is important.

We all started answering on our Biology test.

I found some questions hard to answer. It seemed that I missed some things. I left them blank first.

I went on my paper. I skipped questions, then I went back to answer them. Sadly, I haven't answered them all. You know, that feeling when I can't put any answer on that blank or encircle a letter of the correct answer. It's not easy..

As the signal was lifted up to pass our papers, I ended up leaving items and a part of the test unanswered. I left most of the blanks unfilled. I then concluded that a different person on the desk means a different kind of exams. Definitely. Those shortcomings, those blocks, weighed me down. It was a sudden downfall.

The class of Linnaeus took a 30-minute break. Some of us went, as usual, to the canteen. Some, including myself, just stayed at our room to eat and review. We prepared ourselves for another seemingly tough test...Drafting. We reviewed on our notes and on our handouts. We looked forward to remember all that we needed to remember and to answer the test very well. Here, we need to be exact, and we have to keep the paper as clean as a breeze.

It was 9:30 A.M. And we're back on our seats. The papers were ahead of us. They're now ready to be written and encircled. We began answering. But here, we did it carefully and gently

We did our best to answer the exam as neat as possible, following the directions and warnings of the test: ALL CAPS, erasure enclosed in parentheses as the only accepted erasure.

After at least 1 hour, it's time. We're all finished. And as the proctor desired, we exchanged our papers with our seatmates and checked each other's papers. We said the questions, he'll give the answers. Still, we asked if such answers were acceptable, and he handled them all.

After the checking, each of us knew our scores. The good news came to this kid. Thank God! I've got a very nice score at last! And it would be added when we were blessed to check the papers of our fellow sophomores.

We checked, and checked, and checked. Some of us asked the proctor on the desk regarding the answers of those we were checking.

I went on, making sure that the papers were checked correctly.

The points to be added were 5 points. Then, we're so lucky that the proctor added another 1 point for it. Therefore, it was an equivalent of 10 points(4 for naming the persons around my seat, and 6 points for the privilege of checking) to be added on our actual score. However, I've just thought it was all entirely 10 points. I was slow at that moment.

All in all, there was a shortcoming, but there was also an improvement. There was a lost, but a gain came back. I was left with something to rejoice about, but also with something to doubt about. I thanked, and hoped.

(To be continued)