Stage One with Distinction

I should have posted about this ages ago. I completed stage one of my degree with a distinction. I was not expecting that especially after writing the drivel I did for the last exam I sat.

Four essays in three hours for the wild module I was doing about environmental problems. No revision, a house move the week before and a very painful thumb on my writing hand from doing myself an injury with DIY. Never mind the point about who on earth still hand-writes to the extent that having to write for three hours in one sitting would not be a very unusual thing to do? I had a stab at two essays. I wrote out a plan for the third one and made a start. I got bored and jotted down some ideas for the fourth and then left. I knew I was going to do badly though figured with my other marks I just needed to score 12% or over to pass the module.

When I got the breakdown of my marks I found they gave me 34% for that exam and as my coursework average for the module was 64% I got the pass I needed. The marks for the psychology modules were all close to one side or other of 70%.  Really pleased then with how I did in the statistics exam (the mark is combined) as I must have got close to 80% (turned out it was 92%) to bring the overall mark to above 70% and so get the distinction.

There is a part of me that wants to believe the hype of distinction. There is also a part that knows I did the bare minimum, that this is only the first year and that standards must be low.

That there will be a psychological explanation for this kind of negative thinking has not passed me by. Understanding things often has little influence over my actions. This is becoming more obvious the older I get.