State 1 of 6: Contagious Diseases

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I had my first state exam today - Contagious Diseases. When I tell you I was dreading this, that does not even cover it. 


I studied so much for this exam. I don't particularly like thinking about contagious diseases, as I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. I was doing minimum 6 hours a day reading, doing ankis, watching videos, talking about the diseases. Any possible way to study for this exam, I was doing it. 

There are 39 questions about various bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases. Most of the questions are ok, diseases that I know about and don't mind. But there were a few questions that I really, really, really did not want. In particular the question about hemorrhagic fevers. Guess which question I pulled? 

To make things worse, the professor on the panel studies hemorrhagic fevers, and is a bit of an expert in the area. I couldn't remember the big disease of veterinary importance (Rift Valley Fever), and could only remember some stuff about ebola and hanta fever. I couldn't remember the causative agents, or the transmission method, or where in the world they occur. It was horrific. Even when she was prompting me, I had no clue. If I had picked any other question, I would have been fine, but I managed to pick the only question I didn't know about. 

There's a second part in the question about sanitation and then some question about protection of the environment (each question has something different, mine was about acute rodenticides), which I could remember fine! If I didn't know that then I would have failed for sure.

I had been trying to keep all my grades as As and Bs (a couple of Cs), because I wanted to graduate with honours, and up until this point, I was on track. But I walked out of that room with a D. I'm so disappointed. The panic definitely made me forget a lot of stuff. I can't retake this exam and still graduate with honours, not that I want to retake it! Feels a little bit like all my hard work has been for nothing, but I know that it was just random chance. I spent so long on hemorrhagic fevers too, so it really sucks. Any other question, and I would have been fine.

To top it off, I was looking forward to getting into bed and sleeping, but I came home to some worms that my foster cat had expelled onto the CARPET! So I had to clean that up, and then went to the vets to get some dewormer. I did have a nap after that, and then spent the evening cleaning everything. The stress of this exam period has made me live like a goblin, with piles of laundry and dirty dishes. It's just been horrible frankly.



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