<p>I am so mad at myself right now. And this is somewhat of a long story, but I need to get your guys' opinions.</p>
<p>So one of my teachers told us this method of doing multiple choice questions, where you write the letter answers next to the question number on the answer sheet, and then at the "10 minutes left" mark, you go back and actually bubble in your answers. I thought this was a pretty efficient way of doing MC questions, as it also prevents misbubbling if you skip a question. </p>
<p>Well, for the Computer Science Exam today, I followed through with this method pretty well. For the questions I was pretty sure about, I bubbled in on the spot, but for the ones I wanted to go back on, I wrote down my best guess next to the question number on the answer sheet, but didn't bubble anything in. I think I bubbled in about half of the questions? Anyways, I was checking the time periodically, and planned on bubbling EVERYTHING IN around the 10 minutes mark. I must've miscalculated my time, because right when I was about to go back and bubble, the proctor called time. So I ended up having to turn in my partially bubbled answer sheet, and I'm so mad at myself for this. </p>
<p>Another thing is, my Computer Science teacher told us if we got a 5 on this exam, she'd raise our grades by one grade level, e.g. if you got a C semester one, and a 5 on the exam, she'd raise the C to a B. I got a B- semester two, and I was really counting on this exam to bring it back up to an A. But as of right now, my prospects don't look very good, because I don't think I did that well on the free response either.</p>
<p>I have no idea what to do right now. I doubt CollegeBoard would regrade my MC, since I'm pretty sure all the answers actually have to be bubbled in for them to regrade it. What do you guys think I should do? Should I retake the exam next year, and cancel this years?
I'm so disappointed in myself right now.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear that. You should cancel it unless you did very good on the FRQs, then you would get a 3 or 4 since you bubbled around 20 as you said. </p>
<p>A better tactic than to write the letters on the answers sheet is to make a small mark on the bubble you want to fill in. I mean if it took you 2 or 3 seconds to write a letter (it does for me) that will probably consume like a minute, and every second counts.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip, Techhexium, I’ll keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Should I take to my computer science teacher about raising my semester two grade? I feel like whatever score I get on this exam will not reflect my actual performance, and my computer science teacher purposely makes her class extremely difficult to prep us for the AP exam.</p>
<p>I think whether you should ask depends on how much your teacher favors you. As for the exam, it’s just covers CS1 material except for lots of things like GUI, input, other data types, etc.</p>
<p>A more personal question, do you like problem solving? Because that is what programming is about, and it can be fun.</p>
<p>I do enjoy programming and problem solving, but my teacher makes these two seem “not fun” at all. She’s kind of cold and unapproachable, so I’m going to have a pretty hard time convincing her. Should I just retake the course? I’m a freshman, so I have 3 years left. So stressed about this.</p>
<p>Hey man I totally understand, I am also a freshmen and took this course because it was going to be fun. I had a much better time than you based on your description of your teacher. Only retake the course if you want to get an A and replace your B-. Personally the AP exam shouldn’t have any effect on your grade in the class for us the grade we got was final. Also you don’t have to retake the class to take the exam again. Just self study and try again. Then retake the test in May next year. Good luck man.</p>
<p>Bring a watch with a chronograph next time, and for any timed test, for that matter. Obviously I have a very limited perspective, so this might be silly if you think you could have possibly gotten a 4, but I would cancel and take it next year. Don’t repeat the course, just study to make sure you don’t forget the material, and then retake it next May. Good luck.</p>
<p>Frankly, that’s terrible advice. There’s simply too many things that could go wrong with waiting until the end to bubble everything in. One of my friends thought it’d be a good idea, but like you, lost track of time and had to hand in a nearly blank multiple choice form. You don’t waste any time by simply marking the bubbles as you go. You may “lose focus”, but really, two seconds away from the test booklet isn’t going to kill your concentration.</p>