I walked out of the final certain I got a 100. I got a 90. Earlier in the semester I walked out of test 2 sure I’d gotten a 60. I got a 70. I could not tell how I was doing in either direction.
Test 3 and a final exam in trig this week. 92, 70, 98 on the tests, 90 on the final, 100% on homework, and I end with a B+… 89% to be exact.
So where did it go. The 70.
I studied two days before the test, memorizing everything on the formula sheet and the practice test. I didn’t study the night before. I told myself I was tired and went to bed. Sleeping wasn’t the mistake. Two days of memorization was never going to be enough no matter when I did it.
I knew the format for graphing (r, θ). I wrote it down on the front of the test. I still put the angle before the radius, because I thought r stood for radians.
I didn’t understand the concepts. I just understood how to do the problems on the practice test.
That’s the difference between understanding and memorizing.
It ate at me to the point that for the next test I worked problems until I could do them without the formula sheet. I scored a 98. I feel like I could retake the class right now and do well.
I enjoyed trig. My teacher left me with so much passion for the subject that at times I wanted to declare math as my minor. But I learned that even easy math will leave you speechless when you don’t know the fundamentals of how a problem is solved. Learning and sleeping over a long period of time compounds. Learning the night before dissipates.
Also published on substack.