The Tripos Exam Stress Thread 2012

For everyone entering the apocalypse that is exam term. Extensive moaning, exam dissections and nervous breakdowns go here. Also welcomed are messages of comfort and reassurance and injections of sunshine and butterflies.

GO GO GO.

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Reply 1

lp386

Original post by Zoedotdot

PRSOM, unsurprisingly :smile:

And yay, just in time for me to moan about the fact that I couldn't get to sleep until 4.30am and need to get 18 lectures revised before teatime...

Reply 2

Tortious

So much work. :cry:

And my exam timetable isn't up on CamSIS yet. I've just had my tutor meeting and he sounded concerned that I didn't know the dates - he said to raise it with my DoS. :s-smilie:

Reply 3

Sockpirate

Original post by Tortious

So much work. :cry:

And my exam timetable isn't up on CamSIS yet. I've just had my tutor meeting and he sounded concerned that I didn't know the dates - he said to raise it with my DoS. :s-smilie:

All exams are on the equivalent day to when they were last year - look at last years past papers, work out the equivalent day (i.e. monday week 5 etc.), and it will be then this year with 99% certainty :smile:

Reply 4

lp386

Original post by Tortious

So much work. :cry:

And my exam timetable isn't up on CamSIS yet. I've just had my tutor meeting and he sounded concerned that I didn't know the dates - he said to raise it with my DoS. :s-smilie:

That sucks - I can see that would be really worrying! The lawyers here are terrified too - is there normally much variation in the dates? It's particularly awful when it's a faculty being incompetent...

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I suppose I should probably start seeding the thread with funny videos in advance of other people's frazzled arrivals.

Spoiler

Reply 5

Zoedotdot

My exam timetable isn't up yet, so I'm not sure it's faculty incompetence! Because it's not in the Reporter anymore the Board of Examinations has to put up the full exam timetable online, and that's not gone up either. Seems like there's a hold up in the system somewhere. I'm crapping myself actually, because I really need to know (and MML exams do change year to year because the different combinations of subjects across various largely autonomous departments means that there are lots of clashes that need to be avoided). I think my exams will probably start in just under four weeks, which is frankly **** scary and makes me want to die quite a lot.

Reply 6

Tortious

Original post by lp386

Well, last year our first year exams were on about 24 May, and we'd finished by 3 June (well before May Week!!). I was told then that those exams were quite early, so I'm hoping that second year will be later on - particularly given how much of a beast this Tripos is (and my subject choices in particular).

I'm not terrified by the absence of a timetable, I'm more concerned about learning everything I need to know! The frustrating thing is that you can generally bull**** your way through an essay with minimal knowledge of the law, but you have to do at least one problem question on those papers. The examiner's report will often say "candidates were too quick to drop things; you have to know law from across the syllabus". If you have to learn all of the substantive law anyway, why research academic opinion for an essay? :facepalm2:

Reply 7

Tortious

Original post by Sockpirate

I remember MW's email telling us this, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me. :indiff:

I've emailed SC instead to see if she has the hard copies, on the offchance that CamSIS just hasn't been updated.

EDIT:

Original post by Zoedotdot

Glad it's not just me!

Hugs

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 8

qgujxj39

Shame that I can't actually do any real work at the moment, given CATAM.

Reply 9

Chubasco

Original post by Zoedotdot

The list of exam start dates has MML Part II starting on 25th May (presumably translation if they follow the same pattern every year).

And how on earth am I actually meant to pass my exams if my supervision partner, myself and our supervisor cannot even decide how to organise our revision supervisions/what topics to do for each of them?!

Reply 10

Topaz_eyes

I'm just dreading lectures with as much work as previous terms, with revision on top. Last year I got away with not starting until lectures finished, but I think I might have about 3 days after lectures end until my first exam. ARGH :frown:

Reply 11

Sockpirate

Original post by Tortious

I remember MW's email telling us this, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me. :indiff:

I've emailed SC instead to see if she has the hard copies, on the offchance that CamSIS just hasn't been updated.

So, for example, I looked at the materials exams from 2008, dates Monday 26th May (afternoon) and Monday 2nd June (morning). All past papers have materials exams happening on those equivalent Mondays, at those times, so I can work out that my materials exams this year will be on Monday May 28th (afternoon), and Monday June 4th (morn). My camsis hasn't updated either - it is kind of annoying to have to do it this way, but at least you'll know when they are!

Reply 12

It could be lupus

The exam timetables aren't confirmed yet but we had an email from our senior tutor saying they will be out later this week. Otherwise, sockpirate is correct. The exam timetable is easily calculated from last years dates. Compare the dates with May week and you should get the correct dates

Reply 13

Tortious

Original post by Sockpirate

Oh, I think I see now - thanks! I got confused because the way MW explained it implied you had to start from 0th week (based on the term dates that I can't find on the web) and work forward, rather than just offsetting the days. I'll have to work it out after lunch. :yep:

Reply 14

Zoedotdot

Original post by Tortious

Timetable is online now! http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/studentregistry/exams/timetable/complete_exams_easter12.pdf

It's not on camsis yet, but you can find your dates from there.

Reply 15

Mrs Cullen

Had my oral exam this morning, and it didn't go as horrendously as I'd been expecting! :smile:

Probably made a ton of grammatical mistakes, but I had a nice topic, so managed to think up a few things to say. So pleased that it's over now - it was the exam I was dreading the most. Although I guess now that this means I should probably start revising seriously for the written ones...

Reply 16

Tortious

Original post by Zoedotdot

Timetable is online now! http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/studentregistry/exams/timetable/complete_exams_easter12.pdf

It's not on camsis yet, but you can find your dates from there.

PRSOM! How on earth did you find that?! :adore:

Reply 17

Tortious

Original post by Affy96

I've got less then 3 weeks until my GCSE's and everytime i want to revise get distracted by something or just go to sleep!!! what do i do??

Hi, this thread's aimed at Cambridge students stressing out over their Tripos exams. :p:

In answer to your question, make sure you're getting enough sleep - you can't be productive if your brain just won't work. As for actually getting stuff done, I find it helpful to use a timer to monitor how much time I'm actually spending working. I can easily sit in front of my laptop for 12 hours, but that's not much good if only four of those were spent working!

If possible, turn off your PC and do stuff by hand - it'll help build up your stamina for the exam. You could also try working downstairs where you know your parents will be able to check up on you. :colone:

Reply 18

Zoedotdot

Original post by Tortious

PRSOM! How on earth did you find that?! :adore:

The Spanish secretary (who emails me about ten zillion times daily despite me not doing any Spanish) has been keeping us informed as to when and where it was going to go up, and emailed the second it was uploaded. Even if I do get sick of all the offers to go on language schools in Buenos Aires etc that she sends round she's pretty good at keeping us up to date with things like this :smile:

Reply 19

Tortious

Original post by Zoedotdot