Bad Faery

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Art of Self-Preservation OU style

Above: The gorgeous Mr Darcy with Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Still counts as studying! Honest!

Well I did something today that I really thought I wouldn’t. I decided to deliberately NOT to do an assignment for my current OU course. It’s all the assessment calculator’s fault (a doodah on my course website which allows me to work out my overall likely grade). Having had a play around with it yesterday I worked out that as long as I get a pass 2 mark in my exam, i.e. 70% or higher I will get a Pass 2 grade for the entire course whereas if my exam grade falls below 70% I’ll end up with a grade 3 mark for the overall course regardless of how well I do in my final two TMAS. 

I have this horrible tendency to fall apart in exams so I have no faith in myself that I can actually get a 70% grade. Since my goal when starting the course was to achieve a Pass 2 grade it simply makes more sense to cut my losses with this TMA and crack on with finishing the course material. After all a topic that has turned up as a TMA question is unlikely to reappear on the exam paper so it just started to feel like a waste of time to start a TMA that wasn’t going to impact significantly on my overall grade. I have one more study block to go and it’s the one that really interests me as it looks at English as a creative art. As this is the chief focus of my next language course The Art of English, I’m hoping that it will provide a good jumping off point for that.

Aside from that it’s a case of revise, revise, revise!

And then there is my literature course which is due to start at the end of September. I’m intending to get the set texts read over the next few weeks so that’s going to take up quite a bit of time too. And since I shan’t be spending tonight in a last minute dash to finish my aborted TMA I might settle down with the first of my A210 texts, Pride and Prejudice, for a few relaxing hours. This is really a case of self-pampering as I already know Pride and Prejudice really well having read it previously and seen both the BBC adaptation and the more recent big screen version with Mathew McFadyen and Keira Knightley but it’s such a gorgeous read that it would be hard to grow tired of it.

Comments:

I love all your rationale for skipping this assignment...and watching movies, enjoying life and still passing this course! Sounds like you have it down!!!! Way to go! I bet you do better on the exams than you are giving yourself credit for. Just remember to breathe/relax and you’ll do fine.

Posted by Lynn on 07/31 at 04:29 PM

Even a really high mark in this TMA would have only affected my overall grade by around 1-2% whereas the exam, which counts for 50% of the overall grade, will make all the difference between a Pass 2 and a Pass 3 result. As long as I get to that magic 70% exam grade I can even afford a really pants mark in my final TMA and still get a Pass 2!
So all fingers crossed for Oct 7!

Posted by Bad Faery on 07/31 at 09:01 PM

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