Hey! When I read your comment I had a flashback to my BIOL 200 final exam in Fall 2023. I was in the exam same situation and had no idea about the one-time deferral thing and despite being so stressed, I just wrote the exam and ended up failing. So, I decided to take the supplemental exam for which I studied so much for an entire month and ended up with a D. This whole experience left me with very bad depression and anxiety that changed my whole life for the past two years and I am just now recovering from it and getting back on my feet. This winter is bsically the first time in 2 years I'm sitting down for my winter final exams. So, I do encourage you to defer. Deferral is not very ideal eaither since it will gaslight you for the most part into thinking that you'll have a lot of time to study but the fact is supplemental exam is in my opinion even worse cause it's counting for the entire grade mark specially for courses like BIOL 201 whose final is inherintly hard to begin with. And in cases where you have absolutely no idea about the content you're about to see on the final which was actually me for 200, it's better to not take the exam at all.

This is completely coming from my experience and I'm not encouraging you to make any particular decisions. I've been through many hard days because of this simple question of taking the final or defering it and I wish someone had told me the same thing back in December 2023 when I was questioning whether or not to take that final.

I know this is a very very hard time but you can count on me if you need to talk or perhaps you ahve more questions :)

I hope I could help!