Today we sat for our Introduction to Psychology 2 paper. I arrived just on time for the final, after having helped out a course
mate with his revision of another, totally unrelated subject.
100 multiple choice questions, covering three out of the many domains of psychology: developmental psychology, abnormal psychology and social psychology. The biggest chunk of it was about abnormal psychology, asking things like detection and treatment of psychological disorders. The second-largest chunk was about social psychology, dealing with concepts like self, interpersonal relationships and group behaviour. The smallest portion concerned developmental psychology, asking about prenatal progresses and general psychological theories. All to be completed within two hours.
The first question itself knocked the breath out of me. The subsequent 40 questions or so chilled my heart's core. After those? My heart just froze all over. More than half of the whole paper asked about things that were not covered by the lecturers (different lecturers we had, for the three domains). I'd expected tough questions and had prepared for the worst by borrowing and consuming extra textbooks from the library. Apparently I misjudged the worst case scenario.
When the exam was over, my friends and I collectively moaned about this turn of events. We agreed it was a bad joke. One of us shared that this was not the first one to happen. Last year the same occurred to another batch of students in another subject. In that case, those abhorrently wrong questions were discarded, and the candidates' scores were calculated based on the remaining questions.
A complaint was lodged and the lecturers who received it gave their word that they will "investigate" the matter. It has come to this, then? I'll not go quietly. But first, let them carry out their promise. I trust both of them with their word.
We shall wait, and we shall see. In the meantime, I'll prepare for the last paper.
