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by CSSer 60 days ago
Exams almost filtered me out of this industry before I even got started. I later went on to be a lead developer! I went to a rural high school with a poor math curriculum. I understood the concepts, but I was slow. When I got to undergrad, my first calc professor gave us a 60 question test with 50 minutes of allotted time. He told us if we couldn't do the problems fast enough we weren't cut out for the work and it would be better if we quit now. I've never felt more inadequate in my life. It's one of my only Ws.
2 comments

> a 60 question test with 50 minutes of allotted time

Is this kind of test - many short questions - a standard thing for math in your country?

My university exams were pretty much all "2-question", in 90 minutes.

The first half was an essay where you have to reproduce a lesson from the curriculum, in your own words.

The second half was "the formulas" - you have to develop one or two formulas from first principles.

I once got an A- even though I got "the formulas" half very wrong. As the teacher explained later, I simply chose the coordinate system beginning at not the same place the textbook did. And this was supposed to be a bad teacher - he actually gave Ds to almost all of us (180 people). This was a makeup exam.

What does W mean? Withdraw?
Yes. You can do it a set number of times, opting to either retake the course for a better grade or simply not take it again. Either way it shows on your transcript.