A Cascade Failure

Today in class was jury charge. Jury charge is when the judge speaks directly to the jury. It's usually a lot of instructions and whatnot. I sort of like them because they can be quite repetitive.

Anyway, my teacher started out with a one-minute test. One-minute tests don't really count for anything but they're a good warm-up and they make you feel good when you do well on them. So, I took my one-minute, 140 jury charge, and I did pretty well. I had almost 96% accuracy! So, one would think I would do about the same on the real test. But, when it came time to take the full five-minute test, it was a totally different story.

I had what I call a "cascade failure". I start off okay, but as soon as I start to fall behind, or drop something, or make a mistake of any kind,, I just sort of "give up". I don't mean to, it just happens. I drop one word and instead of letting it go, and writing everything else, I miss the whole sentence, and then the next and then I start hitting the wrong keys and the whole test is useless. That first mistake ruins everything. I couldn't even tell you what my score was, because it wasn't worth transcribing. I just threw it away.

How do other people deal with their first mistake?

It's like I either have a really good test or a down right pitiful test. There is no medium. I'm sure it's all in my head but, I don't know how to get out of my head. It's weird. Unfortunately for me, cascade failures are becoming much too common for me. They are happening more often than not.

The thing that makes me feel better is that I did so well on the one-minute test. If I can get that close to a 140 for one-minute there's no reason I can't do that for five minutes; right? I just need to keep telling myself that over and over agin. I will try again and keep you posted. Wish me luck.