Liberating

So I took my second Anthropology test today. After not doing so well on the first test I decided to put some effort into this one and study all the chapters being covered. I didn't get to study as much as I would have liked but still put a lot more energy and time into making sure I knew the material so I could do well this time. Well after about a month of effort I walk into the testing center feeling more confident in my ability to get a decent grade on the test. I sit down and start reading the questions only to discover everything I've read doesn't really seem to fit with the answers given or that the answer is just beyond my ability to recall - you know that horrible feeling when you know you know something but you can't quite grasp it. Yes many answers were stuck in that region of my mind. So I finish the test and find that I did better by only 3 questions. 3 questions! I don't know about the rest of you but where three questions only equals six points it hardly seemed worth the extra effort I had put into actually studying this time. After reviewing the questions I had missed I felt even more discouraged as they were rarely the ones I was completely guessing on - they were ones I had studied and had either (apparently) misinterpreted the meaning of the text or those few pesky ones where the odd words unique to a particular study (anthropology in this case) get all muddled because they are (a) hard to pronounce (b) all look the same and (c) weird. Anyhow not doing so well on this test was actually liberating for me because now I'm thinking I just won't bother trying as hard - I'll just skim some chapter reviews, read definitions and guess my way through the next test. (How disillusioned do I sound right now...)