Retrospect

A couple of weeks ago I had two tests the same week: Physics and Genetics. Genetics test came back and I had a 92. The teacher was really happy and said that the average was a B and since she didn't believe in curves, nothing bad was going to happen to us. She reminded us that all the Mendelian Genetics stuff was review, so don't ease up on studying for the second test just because we did well on the first test, etc. The Physics test on the other hand was very scary. I received a C, but because the class average was an F, not only under 60% but under 50%, I got an A. Well yesterday, I had the second exam on both.

The Physics test was a cakewalk. Everything was so easy. I don't have my grade back but I think I did astronomically! (Get it!? Physics! Astronomy! Ha ha ha! Oh whatever.)

On the Genetics test, however, I suspect that I did worse than on the last test. Because it was multiple choice, I think I managed to use my test taking genius powers to keep myself from dropping too far, but we will have to see. For one thing, I didn't study numbers. For example, how many base pairs are found on DNA or how many nm long is each nucleotide. Those questions were kind of like history questions that said "In what year was Franklin Pierce inaugurated?" And you think to yourself, "Dude! I have that in my notes, but I didn't look at it once!"

But here's the trick. The question was worded like "If there are 1734 strands of DNA, how many nm is that?" And the answers were "1.734, 17,340, 173.4, and 7253." Now, since I knew that nothing in the world was convenient enough to be exactly 10 or 0.001 nm in length. I could tell what the correct answer was. I hope.

PS. DNA is negatively charged, True or False? I said False, because I am now covered just in case DNA isn't charged at all.

Anyway, here's what Dad suggested, when the class does well, the teacher makes the next test harder. When the class bombs, the teacher makes the test easier. This sounds pretty reasonable so I tend to believe it.