Pre-exam nerves

I'm writing this on a train going north from Tel Aviv to Haifa bay, so excuse me if there are subtle spelling mistakes and lapses in concentration.

I don't think that I can afford the time at the minute to go north as I will be sitting my exam in Marketing on Monday and I don't feel too prepared. Even worse: I have to go to another meeting in Haifa on Sunday, a day which I wanted to take off.

It's all a matter of confidence: before most of my MBA exams, I was feeling confident about knowing the material, and this confidence informed both how I felt in the week leading up to the exams and how well I did. I didn't feel at all confident prior to the exam in Organisational Behaviour and my mark reflected this. They say that there is more material to be remembered (and regurgitated) in Marketing than in OB, although the lecturer (who will also mark the papers) says that one doesn't have to aim for the same accuracy.

Most of the revision has centred around "question 1" which is about marketing strategies. We have a consistent framework for the answer which has to be rattled off; some of it is boilerplate and some is dependent on the case study presented in the question. A great deal depends on what is called the plc - which stage the product is in the 'product life cycle'. If it is a new product being introduced, then there are certain strategies; if the product's market is growing then there are other strategies (ten!), and if the market is mature then there are another few strategies, although to be honest, most of these are the same strategies as for the growing market. So there are 16-20 strategies to be remembered, each with its description. Short term memory is supposed to hold 5-9 items, meaning that these strategies have to be well remembered.

But there are also two more questions which have to be answered in the exam, and these have their own models with six or so stages. One has to remember about six different models (that's 36 items) although only two of those will be needed.

My body is in revolt: last night my blood pressure was comparatively very high, and a night's sleep didn't cause it to drop by very much. My dreams were rather intense and violent, not the normal kind of nightly fare.

I just have to concentrate, breathe deeply and learn the material.

Randy Newman won his second oscar after twenty nominations for one of the songs in 'Toy Story 3'.