The 2013 Tripos Exam Chat Thread! (Cambridge students only!!!)

This is what I find most irritating about exam term. Why the hell am I learning new material?

(Well, sups are not that bad; it is the lectures that just feel like an enormous waste of time.)

Yeah I have to be able to though. In particular life has being in a dream-like daze for the last week and all of this week as I'm doing multi-day take-home (open book) exams.

This is what I find most irritating about exam term. Why the hell am I learning new material?

(Well, sups are not that bad; it is the lectures that just feel like an enormous waste of time.)

This is what I find most irritating about exam term. Why the hell am I learning new material?

(Well, sups are not that bad; it is the lectures that just feel like an enormous waste of time.)

Mine said nothing about needing to work hard and simply told me to eat properly, sleep properly, get some exercise and not become a crazy finalist.

That said, I think she already knows how neurotic I am.

This is the problem of exam term and Cambridge in general - you listen to other people talking about how much work they've done and how little sleep they're getting away with and you tend to assume that you'd do better if you did the same.

This ignores that:
1) people overestimate their work hours
2) people don't work efficiently
3) people lie because they're feeling as bad as you are about their work hours
4) sleep helps you learn and stay sane
5) Tripos isn't worth sacrificing your mental health over.

(There's more, I'm sure, but I'm due at a supervision in 15 minutes...)

This is what I find most irritating about exam term. Why the hell am I learning new material?

(Well, sups are not that bad; it is the lectures that just feel like an enormous waste of time.)

I'm glad I had no new material to learn in Easter term. On the other hand, approaching your comment from an angle I assume you didn't mean, exam term was totally about learning new things for me! It was the time when finally I could get off of the essay hamster wheel and actually 'catch up' by consolidating things, reading stuff I didn't have time to before, and properly engaging and thinking about everything. So I often felt I learnt more in Easter term than during Michaelmas and Lent put together. Also I'm really bad at forcing myself to re-read things I've already covered, so Easter term was a lovely opportunity to pick up things on reading lists I hadn't already looked at instead.

If you're not going to do it in the exam, just don't do it/ go. It's not worth wasting time over just to keep supervisors etc happy.



Good luck

I know but it's hard to tell. I'm not sure what you guys did to annoy GV but, in the crim paper for your year, THREE of the four problems featured Easter material quite substantively. I was happily planning to drop property offences (but know it in outline) until I got to the 2012 paper.

Work in 5 minutes? (I see you lurking, Mr Invisible... )

I have a lecture. Coincidentally, it's a property offences lecture.

(just like when you're tired and you don't want to work or go to bed either).

Beginning to feel as though normal, rational self has been replaced by brain on a stick, essay-writing machine.

Happy Daily Mail Monday eve!

In other news, six Tripos questions between now and tomorrow's revision session. Yawn. (And not just because I couldn't sleep last night...)

AFAIK the fight is unlikely to go ahead this year - too much of a police presence apparently

There will still be a daily mail headline... Something along the lines of "Police prevent Cambridge brawl - our best and brightest?" and photos of drunk students.

Also, when did it become known as "Caesarean Sunday"? I thought that was just the colleges' less-politically-incorrect version of "Suicide Sunday"...

The Caesarean's are the Jesus Drinking Society - Caesarean Sunday is the day when they traditionally fight the Girton Green Monsters on Jesus Green. (No idea if the fight happened or not this year - didn't go myself.) Caesarean Sunday and Suicide Sunday have always been totally different things - Suicide Sunday is the Sunday immediately before May Week, and Caesarian Sunday is the second Sunday of term (i.e. today)

My bad. I think I've lost track of "time" entirely - just yesterday I looked at my college husband, completely serious, and said "today's Wednesday, right?".

In other news, still no sign of Marie! I saw a black kitten yesterday and emailed SC so she could identify it, but apparently it was Millie. It's the first time I've seen her up close - she's very pretty...

I know I want her back! You clearly don't go to the tutorial office enough then - I definitely spent a good couple of hours of my life there stroking the kittens last term! Hope Marie turns up again soon

Haha, can totally sympathise on the time/day thing, although having had lectures up until this Friday has helped me vaguely keep track!