After-Easter Exam #2: History

I've just returned from writing my History 120 exam, which started at noon and covered European history from 1789 to the present.

I spent this morning going over my notes, getting the order of events clear in my head and memorizing dates. It feels a little like cheating in hindsight; I'm not entirely sure why. Actually, I think it's because the information I temporarily acquire that way overrepresents the sum of my learning. But somehow the dates have stuck nicely this term anyway, mostly because I'm very interested in the 19th and 20th centuries and also because we learned of so many important events that using dates to keep things in order and have things make sense is crucial.

Anyway, the exam had three parts:

I. Write about three out of ten(?) events/people. Explain their significance in European history.
(I wrote about the Franco-Prussian War, the Reform Bill of 1832, and the Spanish Civil War.)
II. Identify the source, context, and significance of three out of six(?) quotations from our course readings.
(I wrote about Alexander II of Russia's speech in favour of the Emancipation of the Serfs, about a set of Berlin factory rules from 1844, and about a speech by Lenin)
III. Write an essay about one of six(?) topics.
(I chose to write about how imperialism in the second half of the second century differed from earlier colonialism; I definitely knew too little to answer that question intelligently, but I managed two and a quarter double-spaced pages in my small writing.)

After I had finished the exam to my satisfaction and joy began to grip my heart, I also picked up my marked Romanticism essay. I sat down outside and looked inside the mysterious brown envelope that held it. First I read an accompanying letter to the tutorial group as a whole, then looked at the essay itself. It had only two or three comments on it, but I guess that since I handed it in two weeks late I can't complain. As for the mark, it was 87%! Oh glorious day! It's much more than I expected, and a record in my university essay experience. I wish I deserved it, but it's nice to feel overrated rather than underrated, for once. And I did put a lot of work and thought into it.

Now to relax!