Anthropology Exam lll: I Know I Passed This One!
School - 4 Comments » - Posted on November, 9 at 4:14 pm
Believe you me, after the lousy exams I’ve had in Anthropology 355 this semester, just having the assurance that I passed is a world of relief to me.
I wouldn’t be so confident if I hadn’t memorized the Cenozoic era at the last minute though. You see, I didn’t even realize we would be tested on it, but one guy mentioned it, so I jotted down the years and names. Unfortunately with all those P-words (Pleistocene, Paleocene, Pliocene) it’s kind of difficult to memorize them right off the bat. So I made an “alphabet” with them by using the first sound of each word and then created a mnemonic device to help jog the memory:
Pa: Paleocene (please)
Eo: Eocene (excuse)
Ol: Oligocene (our)
Mi: Miocene (misbehaving)
Pli: Pliocene (potbelly)
Ple: Pleistocene (pig)
Ho: Holocene (Horace)
Then, because the exact dates can range, I took the numbers that fit together the easiest and meshed and remembered them from oldest to latest. 65, 55, 33, 23, 5, 1.8, 0.01 mya. After that all I had to do was remember that the first 5 were the Tertiary period and the last two were Quaternary. It worked thankfully. By going “Please Excuse Our Misbehaving Potbelly Pig Horace” I remembered the order, then by doing my alphabet I could remember which P’s went where. It was a damn good thing I came up with that working method too since it was on the exam. At first it looked as though I had completely wasted my time studying that for nothing, then I turned to the third page of the exam and lo and behold it was all fill-in-the-blank, and guess what, it was all for the Cenozoic era too. Some blanks were answered for you, but the majority were empty. You had to provide which were the Tertiary, different epochs, the time spans, even the era name, and it was all worth 33 points. 
But I got it! 
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Tagged: anthropology, cenozoic, examPosted in School | 4 Comments »
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Wow, that sounds all complicated. I’m glad you know you did well though, that’s an awesome feeling!
That’s awesome that you did so well! I love it when you just happen to study something random right before the test and it pays off. And when you are learning something like that you feel so proud of yourself when you can fill in all the blanks. But you’re also like, I wish none of them were filled in because I know them all and I want to show you that! haha.
Julie,
It is a little complicated, especially when you’re coming in and trying to remember it last minute.
But yeah, I know I passed this one so I’m happy. I totally bombed the practical exam, but then so did half the class. 
Deanna,
That’s it exactly! That thing could have been all blanks and would have been able to fill it in just fine.
Hell, considering how bad I’ve done on previous exams, I would have loved the chance to show off there.