That's gold, Andy. Pure gold. You read that dude's entire blog? How long did that take (and how much better was it than studying)?
I agree that it's BS that some people (the people that sit in the front and ask ?s, perhaps?) take it upon themselves to counter peoples' arguments, especially since I'm sure that they're doing it in an incredibly professional manner. That's one of the reasons that I think it's a bad idea to contest exams like this. The benefit it has for students, I guess, is that you can piggyback on arguments that you never considered; ie. I got #48 wrong because I had no clue and guessed 'c' because I always guess 'c' when I have no clue--but you actually had a valid reason for putting 'c' and, upon reading said explanation, I say "yes Dr Lombard/Stekeil (is he still alive?)/Cowley/whoever, I went through the same thought process as Andy in concluding that the correct answer must be 'c'" and then quote some obscure Scandanavian journal from 1977 (this actually happened in my class) that vaguely relates to the question and sort of supports our answer while suggesting that I had, of course, read this PRIOR to the exam and used knowledge from it as a basis for my answer. Ridiculous.
Oh, and I'm not necessarily saying that phys gets EASIER--block 2 is always the hardest, right? That's especially true if you have Dr. Cowley because, while he actually is a good teacher, he has no clue how smart we aren't and has a very hard time figuring out what level to teach at. Once he's gets that, he's a great teacher--it just takes forever to get there. Having said that, I can tell you that I did do considerably better in subsequent blocks. This probably has a little to do with the fact that I had 2 semesters of UG phys and was overconfident going in, had my **** handed to me after block 1, and hunkered down after that. Blocks 3, 4 and super-secret block 5 (have y'all found out about this yet?)were definitely easier, though.
OK, I'm off to enjoy the last day of my vacation month (I HAVE to go to Costa Rica next month to LEARN medical spanish). Good luck with the rest of the week (I drove down Watertown Plank last night about 11 and saw a bunch of cars in C lot--I feel for you guys). Peace.
I'm sorry!
