Exams

Yay, exams are done! I only had to write two of them this year, which isn't so bad (one year I had 4).

The first one took me 7 1/2 hours. Actually, 7 hours of exam writing and reading (it was open book) and trying to remember stuff and staring at the screen hoping words would appear. The other 1/2 hour was lunch time. I have a very good proctor: he set me up at the computer and then left me alone until it was time to feed me! The exam was on creation and covenant and covered most of the Pentateuch ("most of" because the only questions on Numbers and Deuteronomy,which we didn't really cover in class, were with other choices so I wrote on something else). It wasn't a bad exam. There were a couple really easy questions, like "what are the essential qualities of an Old Testament theology?" which, granted, doesn't seem easy, but right in my notes was the title "essential qualities of an Old Testament theology" with a list underneath it!

The other exam was a nice, normal 2 1/2 hour exam. It was on prophets and prophecy and had 10 questions that the prof had already given us; he had also gone over the components of a good answer for each question. Really, it was a matter of remembering all the points! Some questions only needed 2 sentences to answer; others needed 3-6 points to prove the answer. I did the first 6 questions in 45 minutes and then needed another 45 minutes for questions 7 and 8! I finished with time to go back over my answers, correcting the grammar, clarifying points and adding details; then I had time to skim through Psalms to find a reference I wanted to use (it was in Psalm 110), and still had 9 minutes to spare. Not a bad exam, really. Then the elder (aka proctor) helped me go through his library to find anything I might need for my research papers and then fed me supper (you see why he's a good proctor?).

Next week I start writing papers. The first one is due September 6, then every 2 weeks after that (actually, there's only a week between papers 3 and 4 and three weeks between papers 4 and 5), plus 2 papers for the other class. Everything will be done by the end of October.