<p>Has anyone here every been rolling along in a class and then almost inexplicably implode on one test? If so, how do you recover from that?</p>
<p>If you count papers, then yes. I try harder the next time. And I trust that either the class will be curved in the end, or the professor was just grading harshly on the first paper to make a statement regarding her standards. </p>
<p>I knew I was one of the better writers in the class, and that if I just kept at it that everything would work itself out in the end.</p>
<p>Calculus 3…
Exam 1: 100%
Exam 2: 104%
Exam 3: 68% (still 15 points above the class average)</p>
<p>I was totally uncertain at that point what the curve would be for the class, and the final was the only grade left, so I studied harder for that than I ever had for an exam before. It ended up working out and I got an A, but it was way more stress than I wanted at the end of the semester.</p>
<p>Just realize it happens and move on with your life.</p>
<p>I remember one test where I blazed through most of it, then had the following equation:
sin(x) = Q*cos(x)</p>
<p>I swear, I sat there for 20 minutes totally clueless. Wound up screwing up a bunch of other things on the test because I was so focused on what I must have done wrong to get to that point in that one problem.</p>
<p>It was when I was walking home I remembered this thing called tangent. And how I had been using it pretty often my previous three years in engineering, lol.</p>
<p>It happens. Don’t let one exam grade screw up everything. Just move on and work harder. Things usually end up working out just fine.</p>
<p>I agree with the others that say to move on, but first, figure out what went wrong. Did you not study enough? Did you study the wrong material? Should you meet with your professor or TA to figure out where you went astray? Did you just rush through the material?</p>
<p>If you can figure out why you got the grade that you did, you know what not to do next time.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies! I’ll get the test back tomorrow, so I’ll know what went wrong then.</p>
<p>In AP Computer Science my senior year of high school, my grades on tests mostly alternated between 100s/high-90s and low-70s.</p>