Edit: Up front for your reading convenience! (I mean, really, this thing was long enough already without putting an addendum at the freaking bottom of it.) Exam was returned today. I was ... moderately interested in getting it back, let's just say.
FLYIN' A, BABY
This excites me because I was fairly certain I botched the second problem somehow anyway. Which I did. 5/12 on it, which is horrid. But I nailed both of the bonus problems dead on, and the ten points I got there went onto the average grade instead of the point tally. And I think everyone will agree that an extra 10% tacked onto your grade is very nice indeed.
On another note, should I link to my Pandora profile in my intro?
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Pretty important test tonight. Missed classes this morning because of a major headache which I fracking woke up with, so that was wonderfully irritating, and I meant I spent about an hour and a half before the test quickly running over concepts and putting everything I wasn't entirely confident on into display format in a program in my calculator.
For those of you who have a TI-83 and don't do this, it's really simple. Just create a new program and have it display all your formulas. Display is located in the program menu one tic to the right (PRGM, >, 3), and just shove everything you want inbetween " marks (ALPHA, +). One line of the display screen will be full when your closing " would be below and just to the right of the opening ". I leave an empty line (i.e. {Disp ""} ) between all formula sections and then have the program wait (PRGM, 8; {Pause}) to scroll down to the next section.
Really helpful.
Anyway. Get the exam and as usual with things like this I scan over all the problems to figure out time management. I always save the really tricky ones for last so I can be sure to get all the ones I know, and I know professors who mix up and don't do easiest-to-hardest which is really the more convenient version for us testees, you know BUT ANYWAY.
#1: "Hmm. Fairly straightforward, 'll take me five minutes easy. Cool."
#2: "...and hoo boy, Watts? I remember tortional stuff, but not Watts. Agh. What's after this...."
#3: "Forces shifting. Shouldn't be too bad...wait, one of them is going sideways. Beh, that'll make for an interesting answer format."
#4: "Mohr's Circle, also straightforward. Cool, I'll kill this after One and then look at Three, what's next."
"...blank page. Okay, sure."
Optional: "Proof using Mohr's Circle again, and shear/moment diagrams. Second one'll be a piece of cake, first one...I don't even know where that one is going. Whatever, what's the point value for Two...twelve, and ten for these two together. Beh, I'll hit these before Two, then, save that thing for last."
In my head, of course. =P
I listened (mostly) to the professor's explanation/summary of the exam then went to town. First one was nailed down in six; the third part made my head turn for a second but I remembered what was going on and felt a little silly. Fourth problem took me about thiry-five, forty minutes, mostly from all the drawing and diagramming and what have you. Very simple calculations, very tedious Nerd-Art. (Free-handing circles is a royal pain.)
Third one made me think, but after a moment I realised that the two points I was solving for stuff at made the weirdness I was looking at go to zero in alternate cases, so that was easier. Ended up one had a shear force going vertically down and the other had a shear force going to the right horizontally. Not a huge issue.
Bonus problems were cool. Knocked out the second one first, and it also cost me a good twenty minutes from the diagrams. The first one, which I'd thought was going to be nasty, actually ended up a lot simpler than I thought it would be. I was afraid I'd end up with about eleven steps of variable manipulation and lots of annoying rational expressions but it turned out to be a four-step equality proof that basically solved itself. (Actually, most proofs tend to solve themselves, it's just that the more obnoxious ones take forever to do that.)
Then I went back and stared at the second problem for a while. The issue with it was I was needing a force and I was given Watts (power) and Hertz (frequency), and I couldn't remember what Watts meant in metric. And this is where I prefer the English system, because while we do have a lot of weird-ass number relationships we at least have units that don't turn into random other units without telling you. Looked on my calculator's handy(!!) unit converter and found out that Watts are synonymous with foot-pounds per second, meaning similar to Newton-meters per second, and since I needed a force in Newton-meters I went AHA in my head and was much happier.
After that, the problem only took a long time because at one point I forgot the measurement of the shaft I was constructing had a given outer diameter and I'd used that number for the radius, so I got an interior radius that was larger than the entire diameter. So that was interesting.
But I am fairly confident I did nothing stupid.
Also, for future teachers, a great way to make students nervous is to linger over them while you walk around and monitor the test. In my case, I pretend to pause and think, and I just quit working until they move the frack away, but really it's a terrible idea to stand and watch. So don't perpetuate that, please. =P
Week and a half left, and then finals. Yeah boy.
