Concept(less) Test

Oh no! EXAMS! EXAMS!? Nah, my degree doesn't seem to have real exams, just a little bit of a concept test instead! (Note: I still have exams just ones not relevant to my major...) Well that's OK I guess. So I open up the book that I was meant to have read over the past 14 weeks every week as reccomended and saw that I didn't even need to read all the chapters, or even all of a single chapter. Yes well that's good. First chapter only read a half, second chapter only need to read a half... and so on... Until it gets to World Cinema and history of the development of New Waves around the world, the head figures in different countries, the cultural influence on the content of the cinema, the rise of Hollywood ect. It was about 100 pages to read and the test was... tomorrow. OK! And after that there was even more to read!

Screw that!

Actually, in my bed ridden ill state I found it very interesting. I enjoyed reading about the different cultural influences on the different aspects of French New Wave and Japanese New Wave (As waves generally should never be old, though technically all the "New Wave" stuff happened over 40 years ago at the least.) but I just didn't have the energy to force myself to read all 100 pages nor could I stay awake through it all. With only half the book read through and massive gaps in my memory as to what I had actually read or any ability to recall what "Heurmenuetics" was (or even if that was how you spell it) I braved the major concept test! I wasn't stressed at all even though I hadn't actually managed to review everything that had been told to me in the unit...

Which was good because the test didn't actually have any relation to the unit! You know, just when you were like "Oh, I should've studied more." Martin (the awesomely funny lecturer) decides that it doesn't matter, as he's not entirely sure what he had taught us either so pops in random nonsense! YAY!

Now, in one lecture he mentioned Freudian psychology and his theories in relation to analysing audiences reactions or interactions with films, which makes a bit of sense though most of Freud has limited application to film theory at least that one tidbit of psychology was relevant. Now, in the concept test the whole idea of what was relevant and what wasn't... was completely ignored. Not only did he include many things about Freud but he then included other psychology questions that not only weren't part of Structuralism or Psychodynamics or anything Freud related, but had absolutely 0 relevance to film in it's entirety. Now seeing as I actually do psychological science as a general elective I could answer this bizarre inane question about psychological development of cognitive processes and the identification of the self in infants... Yeah. Exactly. What the hell? I doubt anyone else in the entire lecture theatre understood the question (which was an abismally worded one! The fact that I loath it's structure and explanation of the psychological concept it described fills me with confidence in my ability to do well in my psychology exam) but you know that's not important because at least I look good when people fail.

Then there were questions on films that we hadn't studied so only those who just so happened to have watched Citizen Kane a few times and researched the textual analysis (LIKE ME!) would've been confident/able to knowingly get the question right (it was True/False this one so at least it's not a massive fail for everyone involved.)

Oh and though many people afterwards (and during) were complaining to themselves about how incredibly ridiculous said questions were, or the other questions for that matter. They were ridiculous! I on the other hand was busy thinking to myself how terribly formatted the test was... Seriously, some questions lacked proper spacing on the page! There lacked appropriate designated areas to write responses to the T/F questions! FORMATTING PEOPLE! STRUCTURE! STRUCTURE!

But yes, I did afterwards also agree that the content was the major flaw (because quite frankly, after having to define Romantic Comedies 3 times in bizarre ways, some of which gave you a definition that sounded more like random nonsense than a definition of a film genre, no one really wanted to focus on me complaining about structure... just constant b***ing about ROMANTIC COMEDIES! AGGHHH!).

I do pride myself though on my ability to have answered such nonsensical questions in as intelligent sounding manner as I possibly could! Yes, I came up with very smart responses that had nice big words, were properly structured and really got to the core of the question (whatever the hell the core was).Ah, the elegance of defining the genre of films I've never seen... Like the Road Trip where I talked about the journey towards a place of pyschological or spiritual significance to the party, the events that change the antagonists perception of the importance of the destination and various aspects of their lives and the buddy or friend who is the motivation for the journey or the catalyst for dramatic/comedic action later in the film when they encounter strange people and situations. Yes. So much more intelligent sounding than "A movie where people go on a road trip. They do stuff, generally funny... They make it to their destination a changed person."

So I'm looking forward to seeing just how well I do compared to how warped the test was! Yay!

Now to study for EXAMS! REAL EXAMS! That go for many hours instead of just one and have many questions and essays to write instead of just a few T/F questions and short answers. I should probably study for them between classes instead of blogging while at Uni. Yeah, I'm at Uni now just chilling on some computers, updating my pet rabbits Facebook page I made for her (Panda Moustache Bunny is so cute! Yay! She now has 25 friends!)