Reflection on First Semester Exams

I was pleasantly surprised by most of my exam results, though a little disappointed by one. In order to do better in the semester B exams, I am using the Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle as a tool to help me highlight where I went wrong in order to correct it, and develop an “action plan” to improve my results in the second semester exams.

I have put together my results in Table 1.

I was very happy with my results in both MAP and Biomechanics, but a little disappointed at my lower grade in Animal Management. However, I was not surprised at achieving a lower grade in this module as I prioritised revising for MAP and Biomechanics and did very little revision for Animal Management.

I do not really regret the way that I split my revision, as I feel if I had dedicated a lot more time to Animal Management my results in other modules would have suffered and I would not have been able to achieve such good results. I also enjoyed the modules I did well in far more. This is unsurprising, as it is easier to find motivation to study a subject that is interesting (Schiefele, 1991).

That said, it would have been beneficial to have also achieved a higher grade in Animal Management, especially as it is a double-credit module and an important part of my course. Therefore, I would like to make changes in order to achieve better in this module in semester B. I think it is fairly obvious that the reason I did not achieve as well in this module is that I dedicated far less time to it than my other modules. This was because of time constraints – I left my revision quite late, leaving me with not quite enough time to fit in the quantity of revision I deemed necessary. I decided to prioritise other modules to make the most of my limited time.

To make improvements in semester B, I need to start revision earlier, in order to be able to fit in revision for every module so I am able to achieve good results across all of my modules. Starting small pieces of revision 3-4 weeks ahead of the exam would be a good way of implementing this strategy.