The second test was not especially kind to me. Or, in other words, I did not do a very good job of writing the test. I felt like I knew and genuinely understood the material well. Also, I entered this test with a certain confidence, since I had received a good mark on the first test. Somehow, both of these factors did not translate into a mark I would even call mediocre. I fared poorly, and it came as a bit of a surprise.
The learning experience that I will take out of this instance of underwhelming performance is that a comfort with material cannot beat the mastery of it that comes with repeated, extensive practice. If I had practiced a variety of questions, I do have a feeling that I would have accomplished on par with my expectations.
Moving past the disappointment, I am enjoying getting a grasp on formal languages and FSAs. With formal languages in particular, I was a bit worried that proofs involving them would cause me trouble. Their structural, less algebraic proof techniques seemed to some extent unnatural to me initially. Seeing formal language proofs in lecture was a start, and definitely did help. But working on the small yet valuable problem sets that have involved formal languages has really helped me hone my reasoning regarding them. The review of lecture slides and the course reader that accompanied completing the problem sets was a large part of what made the experience so valuable.
With all that said, I can say in summary that it's nice to feel like I'm back on my feet in 236, despite the setback of my last test's results.
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