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The Ten Stages of Exam Preparation

Stage 1: Indifference
Upon receiving your exam schedule, you divide your time accordingly, maybe even writing a little study schedule for yourself. The world is your oyster. You feel indifferent towards your schedule, as exam time has not yet begun. You know that you have all the time in the world to start preparing.

Stage 2: Determination
As exam time creeps up on you, you start preparing your notes and looking over lectures, maybe doing some practice exams. You are determined to ace these finals and you know that you will do your very best.

Stage 3: Anxiety
You slowly start to realize that the amount of work you still have left to do is disproportional to the few days left that you have before the exam. The failure of your self made study schedule is revealed. You start feeling pangs of anxiety, maybe even calculating how badly you can do on the exam so that you don't fail the course.

Stage 4: Denial
You begin falsely assuring yourself that there isn't that much to study, anyway. You blindly flip through your notes a few times, but they seem like words on a page, without meaning.

Stage 5: Overconfidence
You've flipped through your notes so many times that you're sure you will remember everything during the exam itself. Your brain must have stored the information somewhere, right? You begin to procrastinate and do time consuming things, such as scrolling through Tumblr, imgur, and Facebook. You may play a few video games or buy more levels of Candy Crush Saga at this stage. You feel like you should reward yourself for your hard work.

Stage 6: Regret
The night before the exam, you begin to feel a strong sense of regret for not having started studying earlier. You may try to drown your sorrows with espressos and Mars bars. You try to cram as much information as you can, but know that little can save you now. At this stage, your exam stress starts becoming more than just an academic problem. You may start regretting your choice of university, your habits throughout the year, or your over consumption of alcohol in high school. You become a hot mess.

Stage 7: Acceptance
The regret phase passes as you finally come to terms with the fact that the exam is today, and you must write it, whether you're prepared or not. Your goal is to pass it and move on with life.

Stage 8: Writing the Exam
Your brain is filled with random facts from all your different courses. Your sweater is itchy. The song you were listening to on your iPod that morning is stuck in your head on repeat. You notice that your desk wobbles as you write. You're paranoid that your pen will run out of ink. The guy sitting in front of you has a distractingly muscular back. The clock is ticking. The supervisor is staring at you like you're a thief. And there's only 3 hours to go!

Stage 9: Finishing the Exam
You thought you prepared well. But you notice that your studying was semi-useless, as professors like to put totally random questions on the exam that were only mentioned once in lecture. Five months ago. Then there are questions like "according to the professor, what is...?" As if you payed attention! Whatever, the exam session is almost done. You don't want tot be the first to leave the exam room, but you don't want to be the last.

Stage 10: Time to study for the next exam! Repeat x infinity 

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