When I Bomb One Exam Which Makes Me Bomb the Next and I Genuinely Reach Flow State

Article By: Claire Hua | Photo by: Maddy Baczek

Picture this: it’s the final week of school before the study period, so naturally I have three “midterms,” not to mention a presentation and a 12 page essay due, all in the span of three days. Oh, and I have one weekend to prepare. (I procrastinated and did nothing.)

On Monday, I have a presentation for English class and a psychology exam. I’m running off a Celsius and two hours of sleep because of all the “studying” (scrolling on my phone) I did last night. In the morning, I have my exam, and it’s multiple choice. Somehow, I’m doing surprisingly well. I’m flying through the questions, filling in the bubble answer sheet, flipping through the pages, and…

“FIVE MINUTES LEFT.” Shit. I wake up in a cold sweat. I sit up frantically, and my pencil rolls off my desk. As I reach to pick it up, I take a quick scan of the room and… oh. The only person left in the classroom is me and my professor. Great. I take a look at my answer sheet and it’s only half filled. There’s no way I’m going to be able to get through the other problems, so I bubble in random letters and just hope for the best. I hand in my exam, avoiding eye contact with the professor, before practically running out of the room

Next is my English presentation. I wish I could tell you how it went, but I genuinely don’t remember anything that happened or what I said. What I do remember is that I fell asleep for everyone else’s presentation and by a miracle made it through mine.

I’m absolutely dreading Tuesday which is… wait I want you to guess first. Hint: it’s that one quiz you always hear about because your friend who’s pre-med (and everyone else) won’t shut up about it. Yep, you guessed it! Chemistry! Unlike my psychology exam and my upcoming biology quiz, I actually study really really hard for this one. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been completing the homework questions, finishing the discussion packets, rewatching lectures, all that good stuff. 

My quiz room is CAS 522, and I spend well over 10 minutes searching for it. I go up an elevator, down some stairs, up some other stairs, and finally end up in the right room. Before my quiz starts, the instructor takes us through some breathing exercises, which somehow just makes me even more nervous. Regardless, I finish a few minutes early and I’m feeling good about myself. Although I left two questions blank, that's an improvement from my usual five. I only need a 6.3/10 on this quiz to end with an A in the class, so I’m feeling pretty confident. 

Finally, my biology exam is Wednesday. It’s all just common sense, I tell myself. It’s multiple choice, so if the answer is right in front of me, surely I’ll be able to figure it out. So, I don’t study at all and, for the first time this week, get those 8 hours of sleep before heading into my exam. Right before the test is about to start, I hear these girls behind me talking about their chemistry grades, and I’m getting extreme FOMO. Over the weekend, I had told myself I would check all three exam grades at the same time to lessen the blow, but now I can’t stop myself. There’s five minutes until the biology quiz officially starts, so I pull up Blackboard and check my psychology grade first. As expected, I absolutely bombed that. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all. I’m sure my chemistry grade will cheer me up (wow never thought I’d say that), considering I only need a 63%. I click on Quiz 6 and… 6/10. Seriously??? I feel tears creeping out of my eyes, and I want to scream and throw my computer on the floor and smash everything in sight and curse out anyone who got a good score. But my biology exam is about to start. So instead, I pull up the exam software on my computer and crash out silently while guessing on practically every question (no, it was not all common sense). 

I leave my last exam of the week and despite knowing that I’m probably going to have to take the optional biology exam during finals week to replace whatever atrocious grade I’m going to receive, I’m happy that I’m finally free. No more exams!!! Well, at least until finals week (next week). As I’m walking back to my dorm, I remember something terrible. I have my English essay due tonight. And so far, I’ve written nothing.

Now, I’ve never reached flow state before, but is this what it feels like? Please let me know.

Note to reader: everything I said about chem is true, so please pray for me and my retakes <3