Starting the 2nd project

Starting the 2nd project was pretty difficult because I thought that the 1st project was fairly difficult. To me, the first project was difficult because it was hard for me to visualize what I had to do and because of that I struggled to write the code. Furthermore, because the 1st project was such a challenge, I worried a lot about the 2nd project. I decided to start trying the 2nd project right when it was posted. The first day I tried it, I couldn't understand how to do anything. My brain would not work and I was very nervous because I knew that I would have to finish the project some how. So, I decided to give my brain a break and went to sleep. The next day, I opened DrRacket and attempted to do the project again. I told myself that I was probably just over thinking and the anxiety was blocking my brain from thinking. So gave it another try and when all the check-expect test passed I was overjoyed. This made me realize the importance of spreading out work over a long period of time when I am stuck on a question. This allows the brain to ponder about the issue. Although the thinking happens subconsciously, ultimately giving the brain time to relax and process the information will lead to a better result.

Things to Remember on Tests

After looking over the questions I got wrong on the test, I have found a couple of errors that I must keep in mind when writing the final. With regards to my bad habit stated in my previous post, I feel like in order to deal with that problem, I should start to look at each piece of information individually then think about it as a whole. So for example, on the 2nd term test, we were given 4 definitions, a definition for image, pixels, i and nth-pixel. Looking at all the information right away might be intimidating in the beginning. So, in this case, even if it seems like it will take a long time, I should slowly decipher line by line what each definition means and its function. In order to not overwhelm my brain and stay focused, something I could do is to maybe use my hand to cover up the other definitions and then after I understood that line, move my hand down the list of definitions until I understood all the definitions. Another thing I could do is if I couldn't understand the function of any of the definitions given, I could save that question until the end after I finish going through the other material on the test. This not only saves time when writing the test but also allows my brain to take a break from that question. By doing this, it will allow my brain to freshen up and will help me think of different approaches to tackle the problem.

Another thing I should keep in mind is my misunderstanding of the function color-list->bitmap. On the test for some reason, I thought that for example (circle 10 "solid" "black") would only produce a list of colours that contained only 1 colour. I forgot to take into account that because the circle is black and not just one shade of red, green or blue, it would produce a list of colours with more than 1 element in the list.

Finally, I need to remember that whenever I rotate, the number or the degrees the image is being rotated by goes in front of the image. For example (rotate 45 image) and not (rotate image 45). Also, something I really should not forget doing is checking my work. This will allow me to decrease the amount of careless mistakes I make throughout the test. I should check my work every single time I finish a question and then do a final check from the beginning of the test to the end before I hand in the test.

Term Test #2 Results

Wednesday December 2nd is the last day of tutorial. It is today where I got my term test #2 results. As expected, I did not do as well on the 2nd term test compared to the 1st. Because of this, I knew that I had to reflect on why my results were significantly lower in order to prevent myself from getting a similar mark on the final. As I looked through the questions I got wrong on the test, I realized that there were quite a few careless mistakes. I knew how to do the question however, I still got them wrong. This made me question myself why this happened. I realized that whenever I see something confusing or a little more complicated, I would tend to block out the question. This means that instead of slowly and patiently deciphering the question, I would just read the question skipping the parts I do not understand and come up with an answer based on what I know. I know that this does not only apply to computer science but also to other subjects which is why i definitely need to change this bad habit of mine.