Spring end of semester exam results

おひさしぶりです！(Long time no see!) Finally back from all my domestic trips. I hope to document each of my trips in more detail in individual, dedicated posts in the coming week. I am aware that I've said similar things in the past, and nothing came to fruition, but this time, there's one difference: holidays have started! Technically, holidays started on July 20th, but it hasn't felt like it till now.

So this post is the first of many overdue posts. I came back from my final trip this summer holidays on the 17th of this month, but I have been cramming flat out for my PTC correspondence exam since that time until today, when I finally sat it. To give an update on my previous post, I have turned down the Japan Tent international exchange, made my (possibly more than one) would-be homestay family very sad by cancelling, and instead committed to studying the remainder of the PTC course to the best of my ability. After all, I'm not doing this course for marks alone. The whole reason I began it was to get to know the Bible better, and it would defeat the purpose if I studied merely to pass. So I sat the two and a half hour exam for Introduction to the Bible at 2pm today, and used up the entire 2.5 hours. The good news is that I could answer almost everything, so it showed a good understanding of the subject content, praise God! Report of results will come in time. Thank God for the generosity of my church pastor who served as exam supervisor and made this all possible!

In the meantime, the following table displays my results for our end of semester 1 exams. I intended to write this on the 19th of July, when we got our exam results back, but haven't until now sorry >.<

Japanese speaking	90
Japanese composition	88
Japanese listening	100
Kanji writing/reading	100
Japanese grammar	98
Politicoeconomics	79 91
Japanese history	99

I figured there are numerous benefits to putting up my results here. Since my official job at the moment is student, I'm sure people back home want to know how I'm faring in that department, so I'll let my results do the reporting. Another good reason is that this will help me keep track of my exam results, as we have been advised to do.
I'm thankful to God for the marks that have eventuated. Our responsibility is to make the most of the opportunities and abilities he's given each of us, but the outcome is up to him. As I like to phrase it, trust God and do your best, and God will do the rest. Whether I get 45%, 65% or 95% doesn't matter; God will give me what he deems best.

These exams have on the whole been well structured in achieving their purpose of assessing our progress. We had to fill out a questionnaire on the quality of the teaching in the semester, and my responses were largely positive. The one exception, however, was politicoeconomics, as I vented at length in a previous post.

You'll notice that the dodginess of the subject is reflected in my mark above. The mark change was approved when I spoke with the teacher who set, marked, and reviewed the exam (without any cross-checker). Why did my mark jump from 79 to 91, you might be wondering? The whole difference came from one question. And that question, was entirely a mathematical one.

Because venting in only one post isn't enough for me, I'm going to vent again that you don't set arts students maths questions in a timed exam. Or if you do, at least do some practice in class, or actually tell us before the exam so we can practice. The question I lost most of my marks on was a question that required us to look at age statistics and calculate population proportions using raw data. We did look at the same data in class, but the teacher did not get us to work out a single math problem in class or for homework. He then proceeds to set us a 15 mark question, of which I only got 3 initially. To be absolutely clear, I understood the concepts and formulae needed to work out the numbers. So after I reasoned with him that I demonstrated my understanding by writing down all the formulae correctly and had written down the relevant figures but that we weren't allowed a calculator and I ran out of time calculating, he finally consented. I wonder how many other students in the class lost marks not because they didn't know their stuff, but because they couldn't divide 66,987 by 12,692 without a calculator. Yes, I bring shame upon my Chinese family. To give the full story, I admit that yes there was a shorter way by using alternate data on the sheet, but that still involved dividing something like 89.1 by 26.8 without a calculator and without being warned before the test, which is my primary complaint, and I maintain my position.

In any case, the first term marks don't count for this subject (precisely because the university knows unexpected things like this happen). So it doesn't matter whether I got 79 or 91, it doesn't affect anything. However, I strongly dislike the structure of this subject.