How would you feel if...

• you spent 2 hours studying right before taking your midterm;
• because of lack of preparation (as a result of putting in too much overtime at work), you decide that the midterm will be "open book" (which you have the option of doing anyway, because it's not proctored);
• you finish writing your midterm with 15 minutes to spare;
• you decide to review your answers, since you have 15 minutes left;
• you go through questions 1, 2, and 3 and when you hit the "next" button, it takes a bit longer for the page to load;
• even though you have a perfectly fine internet connection, your session "timed out" and the typical "error/lost connection/unavailable at this time" message comes up??

So, I hit the "Back" button on my browser to get back to the page I was on. Luckily, I was able to end my exam. I clicked on the "end" button, which took me to the first warning page (by clicking end, you will not be able to review your answers, blah, blah, blah...). So I clicked "end" again, and it took me to the second warning page (are you sure you want to end the exam, blah, blah, blah...). I clicked on "end" again, and then it happened again. It timed out. ARGH!!!

When I saw that, my jaw dropped and I thought I was going to cry. Then I went into panic mode. What does this mean? Will I be able to write the exam again? Do I lose 40% of my final mark because it "timed out"?

I opened another session in another window, and was starting to type out the whole story to my instructor. Then I thought, what are the chances that I did end my exam, but it just didn't show up on my end? So I opened yet another window and clicked on the section that tracks your progress through the course. And sure enough, it was there. Was I relieved! Although I went through half an hour of panic and anxiety, at least I know I didn't lose those marks. I got 88%, which is OK considering that I didn't study the last 2 chapters as much as I would've liked. But at least it's done.