I'm going to blog about my exams again, specifically yesterday's exam. For those who have read the comments on the check-in that I was tagged on FB will know what this is going to be about.

For my previous economics exam, maybe it's because I was too confident in myself since I've taken the course twice before (at different institutions for different qualifications, not that I failed and needed to repeat it). I've known almost all of what to expect, I've thought of every twists and turns that the lecturer might put up in the questions because I've already seen quite a few. I have absolutely all the important concepts right here at the back of my mind. Unfortunately though, I wasn't able to figure out that the question could be maths/equation-based like that. As I've said, I've expected graphs, and lots of them...

However, the econs exam don't compare to yesterday's exam at all! Well, partly because yesterday's subject is new to all of us. We can't really take up finance when we're in school. The most money that we counted back then was from firms/businesses through their financial statements and that's about it. For me, it was not until I took my first semester diploma in uitm two years ago that I got my first taste in what finance could be like, that is when I took Business Maths which revolves around the concept of Time Value of Money, Interests Rates, etc... And last semester I took finm2401 at UQ which is about Financial Management. Fair enough, my background that I received from Uitm helped me a little, though 2401 is much much more than that. We dug into more details about the concept of all kind of loans, how to calculate the interests and so on. It was still fairly simple now that I thought of it (though it almost killed me too when I answered my finals back then).

But but... finm3404 aka Banking and Lending Decision is just... T___T

I have to be honest that I knew that something might go wrong. I have no idea why I was so calm and collected during the gap before this finance exam. I knew I wasn't ready yet, but there was no adrenaline at all, even as much as I tried to force it. My revision went on slow and steady, perhaps too slow. I could still find time to go online, blog some more, and sleep! I'm not going to hide it that I have this one day that I went to bed at 7pm and only woke up at 6am the next morning. And I didn't feel guilty at all! -_- I knew something is going to go bad for this exam somehow, but I really didn't expect for it to go this baaaad :'(

I managed to finish my revision before I went into the exam hall. I went through some questions as well, and I was pretty confident with my preparations, albeit worried that I would jumble everything up and confuse myself. I even flipped some of the concepts a few times more to make sure that I got it right. I was starting to like this subject now I have a better comprehension of it. However, when I was at the exam venue, instead of "I can't wait to get this over with! *fighting mode*", what came out of my mouth was, "Can I skip this exam? I don't want to go in. I don't want to take this exam... :(" much to my friends' amusement. Well, it turns out that there could just be a reason for everything.

This subject is all about Banking and Lending Decision just as the name suggest. We learnt, in the banks' point of view, how they assessed loans, credits etc. The first half of the course were more towards how to calculate interests and profits from all kinds of loans (eg: commercial, home mortgage, project financing), how much to give out as loan, identify who's eligible. And the second half is more towards assessing the banks' perfomance internally, how they could manage their asset and liability against unexpected change in interest rates, how much to keep as capital to back up for it's long-term loans, and we also learned a bit about Islamic Banking! Pretty interesting right? The catch here is, you will need to switch your mind into thinking that loans are the assets and deposits are the liabilities unlike in accounting, because they're the banks. And their income mainly comes from interest earnings. So yeah, I had to turn my head upside down to get the hang of things here.

And just as I thought I've got the hang of it all and will be able to answer the questions, it turnes out that my lecturer has hired an alien from Mars to prepare the questions for her. T_T The questions were so deep and so confusing that even the 10 MCQs seems to take me hours to complete. Not to mention that I hate it when they start using SAT words in the questions. -_- Each MCQ collects 2 marks, and believe it or not, I was only confident with ONE of my answers, and the other 9 was BLEHHHH~ When I started on the Problem questions, I found one that she took straight from the tutorials. Oh yeah I was happy for this one. :D I immediately went through the sub-questions, and when I was up to the third sub-question, suddenly my heart began to pump weirdly and my mind started to think, "Am I doing this the correct way? Or is it supposed to be the other way round? Oh shit." Then, I totally lost my confidence in the question. I paused and inhaled. Bad thoughts was starting to take over and I can't let them get to me. This is a very crucial state. T_T "Subhanallah," yes I almost said that out loud in the quiet exam room. -_- I decided to try other questions, I flipped and flipped, and I recognised another question about Ijarah (lease-to-own for Islamic Banking). I was happy that I was able to answer everything, however, the marks allocated were only 1 to 2 marks for each of those four sub-questions. T_T This isn't going to contribute much marks for my grade, dang! Then I flipped and flipped; this one's hard, this one's hard too, what is this question talking about?! and suddenly this thought came to me, "Why are you flipping so much, you're wasting your time! Just get to a question already!" Mummy~~ :'(

In short, I have an 8 marks question left completely blank, and also a few more blanks for the 4 marks question, and some of them I could only answer half-way. T_T I seriously thought that I was doomed. Am I the only one who's struggling this badly? I couldn't even spare a moment to look at other students' reactions while in the exam hall. But when I came out, some people were crying. It was weird, the atmosphere was tense. After my econs exams, everyone was oddly loud on their way out of the exam hall, I guessed that everyone must had the same opinion as me. But this time, it's the complete opposite!

Then, I waited for my friends to come out of the hall because we were seated separately and my seat was closest to the exit, but they're no where to be seen even as the hall has cleared out. Guess what, this one friend of mine forgot to write her name on the exam booklet, which will represent 80 out of the 100 marks of this final exam. She was still inside trying to argue with the invigilator to give her exam booklet back so that she can at least scribble down her ID. But they were very strict. :( Even our lecturer was there and tried to help us out, but the Invigilator wasn't giving in. It was the first time that I saw her cry...

It wasn't her fault though. Even I almost forgot to write down my details at first, because we aren't allowed to write anything during perusal except on the scrap paper given (perusal is the time when you're allowed to look at the questions and plan which ones to answer first. You can't start writing down answers, but we usually answered the MCQs during perusal and scribble a b c d or e on the scrap paper and transfer it to the MCQ anwer sheet later. oh, we also aren't allowed to use our calculators during perusal), and that was also when we were shocked by the extremely advanced questions. Automatically, our alerted mind would rush to answer those question right after perusal ends. Thank God I was still quite collected then to realise what was most essential. My friend must've had it worse that I did. :( They cried as we left the exam venue, for fear that they won't even pass the exam. I still had some strength left in me, so I didn't let that thought pull me down. But I regret it that I didn't know how to console them.

Well, this has been a pretty long entry. haha. Sorry that you had to read a full essay of it. I just felt like I need to get it out once more, because the thoughts of yesterday are still disturbing me. I know I should just let it go and move on to focusing on my next exam, but you know, something in me was crushed because of finm3404 and I'm trying to get it back together. I hope I'll be able to start revising on income tax law soon. I need to get back in the game. :')

p/s: Last minute edit. This is a video of last night's lunar eclipse. I believe this is taken somewhere in Australia. :)