#anyway i'll stop rambling

[the---hermit]

oral exam tips

I have at least one other post on exam tips, but they were mainly focused on giving tips on history exams. To me oral exams in academia have been the norm since high school, but I know that in other countries that might no be the case, so I decided to write down a list of advices coming from someone who is quite used to this kind of tests.

If you aren't used to having oral exams, you might need to change your study method, or at least add a few steps. I recently made a post entirely dedicated to my study method, which might be useful for this, but what I suggest is to add a step in which you review things out loud. What I would do is to just sit down with your notes or your materials and pretend to give a lecture on everything. Even better if you have a friend or family member to listen to you, because by having an active listener you will be forced to not skip stuff and have clear explainations, and they might ask you questions or clarifications. Those are always good because that might happen during the exam as well, but also it will help you memorizing those things. I recommend reviewing out loud multiple times. This way you will get more comfortable with the exposition of the topics you will be tested on, and you'll have a chance to find your own "voice".

by finding your own voice I mean finding a good compromise between using your own words to explain things, while still using the correct specific vocabulary of whatever topic you'll be tested on. This is fundamental. You are not there to recite a poem by heart, you are there to show you have understood the topic, that you sat with it and made it yours. You have to show you know how to clearly explain things but also reflect on it, making links with other things, and so on. At the same time there's some academic and specific vocabulary you want to include, because you are not in fact discussing the topic with a friend. So practicing out loud before the exam is good to find a good compromise between these two things.

I kind of mentioned it already, but it is absolutely fundamental to show that you understood the topic and not just memorized it. Whatever you do do not learn things by heart. It's better to be slightly insicure about a specific date, than to repeat your book word by word. And if you practice enough, and are comfortable enough with the informations in general believe me you can work around those things you can't remember perfectly well as you are being tested. Moreover your mark on the exam will be much higher than if you just learn things by heart.

on the very delicate topic of not remembering something specific you have been asked. Don't panic, you can still kind of save it. Whatever happens do not stay silent. There are several things you can do depending on whatever the question is, and I will later tell you a very specific example of something that happened to me. As I said do not panic, surely you will remember about some context on the topic so start by talking about that. As you are giving the context you might start to remember additionals informations, or you might build up enough informations to be able to logically guess whatever you are not remembering correctly. If you are half sure about something go for it, even if it's the wrong info if you contextualise it well enough you'll show you knew about that and it might just be read as a slip of you confusing two things. Now there might be situations in which the question is so direct that you can't do much, it happened to me once during my Greek history exam. I was asked the specific date of an event, and I could not for the love of the gods remember it. You know what I did? I told the professor, I cann't rememebr the exact date, but giving certain informations (that I then explained) I can tell you it was more or less in this half of this century. What I did was admit a fault, but while doing that I showed her that I knew what we were talking about it, I had enough informations on the matter to logically place it on the chronological line and contextualize it, and showed her that I can in fact work with the informations I studied. And at the end of my exam the professor complimented me on those exact things, saying she appreciated seeing me use my brain instead of midlessly memorizing informations I didn't understand.

So whatever happens do not stay silent. Anything is better than that.

Another potentially bad thing that might happen, and believe me it happened to me multiple times, is panicking so bad that you cannot get the words out, or confuse things. You know what happened everytime I found myself in that situation? The professor clearly saw me panicking, and told me to calm down, wait a couple of minutes, get my ideas in order and try again. And I got good grrades despite that in the end. You are under a lot of pressure, because you are giving an exam, and you have to be quick and ready instead of being able to reflect like with a written exam. Professors know that, and they keep it in mind, and they can tell when you are mixing things up because you are nervous, and not because you don't know things. I once had a professor look at me in the eye after i mixed up numbers on two dates twice in a row, and told me I know you know them take two deep breaths and try again. And I did. I have so many personal stories from my previous degree in which professors saw I was nervous and told me that it was okay I just needed to take a minute and breathe, and honestly that was exactly it. It was okay and I really needed to breathe, and then the exam when well.

The best tip I can give on answering questions is to balance the actual answer of the question with additional informations. You want to give context and add more infos to whatever has been asked to you, but you should also try not to lose focus on what was being asked. My personal way of doing this is to structure the answer in three parts: 1. general context that works as an introduction to the actual direct answer 2. the actual answer 3. further additions like more context, comparaisons and links with other topics or informations you had to study. This way you show off you know things, you make sure to show the professor you are not just rambling because you don't know the answer, and finally show you are comfortable enough with the informations to reflect on them and link them to other things. Ideally the professor will stop you while you are speaking, that in my experience is the best possible sign, because they are satisfied with your exposition and want to move onto other things.

So always build up on the answer to the question you have been asked. Never stop at just the information that serves as an aswer. You studied, it's your time to shine and make yourself proud.

Contextualizing your informations is absolutely fundamental no matter what, again because it shows you have a clear idea about what you are talking about. This can mean making a small introduction on the time and place, if you are an historian like me, or maybe give an introduction on the person you are talking about (whether they are an historical figure or a scholar you are talking about). Adding the little informations you weren't asked about is great. You are briefly mentioning an even and know the date? Add it in. Everything is a good addition.

Again I have definitely already mentioned in previous points but showing you are capable of reflect on the topics you are talking about is always a bonus. Make sure that when you are giving personal options or personal reflections you are stating this is your thought, but that is usually appreciated. After a good exposition of a topic you might even get the professor asking you your opinion on certain things. It happened to me multiple times, often I was asked to give an opinion of books I had to study for the exam, and that always prooved as an oportunity to add more informations and as I said show that I could make reflections of my own.

Last thing, that again kind of came out from other points, is that you want to show you are comfortable enough with the topic to be able to jump from one point to the other while reflecting on things or making comparaisons.

I am pretty sure I have forgotten something, but once again if you have specific questions I am happy to help, my inbox is always open. I know people who aren't used to oral exams are very scared of them, but as long as you try to approach it like a normal conversation on the topics you had to study, and you have practiced, things will be fine. To be quite honest with you after years of experience I'd say I very much prefer oral exams to written ones, because you can in a way shape the conversation and bring it to the topics you liked the most, know best. I hope this post was somewhat helpful to someone out there, and good luck if you are about to take an exam!

[spicy-flower]

hhhhhhh this took forever and i'm not ever sure i like it that much... anyways here's crowley! the middle one is my favorite, i probably overworked angel crowley which is a shame because i love him very much

[red-moon-at-night]

okay the whole vase is great but something about Helen sitting on Aphrodite's lap as she wraps one arm around her shoulder and brushes her leg with her hand, staring into her eyes like that... as she is persuading Helen to go with Paris (while Peitho aka persuasion stands behind them) is so incredibly iconic.

and gay. toxic yuri, if you will.

[poke-poke-poke]

Thinking about pkmn social media-- he's giving tips on how best to take care of pkmn that aren't too keen on water (goomy's there for enrichment)

...

his hoodie got soaked,,

[demaparbat-hp]

Almost

[hajihiko]

Picking people for his gang like rotten apples off the ground

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[shimmershy]

Chara Week Day 5: Ghost

Every time I see that machine in the True Lab, I wonder if it could possibly be Chara's soul in there? Probably unlikely, but not impossible... It's interesting to think about what the implications of that would be.

A version with no text and then a version with just the machine, because I think it looks pretty cool and ominous alone as well.....

[kirby-the-gorb]

[pigeonstab]

Doodlessss of the lovelies

[myth0mani-art]

I have the feeling Vessel would laugh at chemistry jokes...

[queerofthedagger]

i'm re-reading the hobbit (aka it's my current falling-asleep audiobook) and there is something to doing that after having just read the silm and the great tales and (almost) the entirety of HoMe that just hits me in the sense of. so much of the great tales talk of great heroics and incredible deeds of valour. and yes of course their mode is different and that's why they feel like this, why they are a little untouchable sometimes, bigger than life, almost. but there still is something so poignant to returning to scared, terrified, shaking-in-his-boots bilbo baggins who faints at the notion of a dragon and baulks at the idea of an adventure and then goes anyway.

i don't have a very coherent conclusion about this yet beyond, it keeps making me think of the 'courage is not absence of fear, it's being scared and doing it anyway' and how on one side it says so much about bilbo, about how he goes, and keeps going, keeps growing with each new step on the road, without ever quite stopping being scared out of his mind. and how on the other side it is also a reminder that regardless of the tales painting them great, we should not forget how often all the great heroes must have been scared, too. how they went anyway. perhaps finrod did not faint at the prospect of facing sauron, but he went anyway. perhaps hurin did not quail in the face of morgoth, but he must have been terrified for himself and his family anyway. how he kept resisting anyway. perhaps luthien did not try to convince herself just to stay home on page, but how hard the road regardless. how she walked it anyway! like!!

[bookwyrminspiration]

teenage headache dreams <- ao3 link

Hiiii @tamsong, I was your secret santa :3 (put together by the lovely @song-tam). I had so much fun writing this and have absolutely busted my ass these last few days to get this to you on time. Would you believe me if I said my original goal was 10k words?

Anyway, please enjoy! Would love to hear everyone's thoughts <3

summary:

It's their final year at Foxfire and Sophie is a faithful passenger on the struggle bus. Biana, her girlfriend, decides to throw a surprise party to cheer her up.

warnings: mention of a car crash

word count: 17,568

[biblically-accurate-dca]

super disorganized sketch page because i do what i want

[misstictart]

He's here for Murder

Here's a little comic to illustrate one of the many use of Murder Mitten's name for puns. Among others.

Bonus scene!

(Forgive me I'm not very good at drawing the kids yet but! Here's an attempt in the meantime!)

[spinnysocks]

the frenemies of all time

it was so hard to find pictures of them in the same shots 😭 they're in the same scenes all the time but not the same shots- i think it's actually a purposeful choice by the animators to show they're not actually allied, which i think is cool