First 'Exam'

The date had been looming for a while, my first ‘exam’ in Spain, and to be honest I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what I got. It was a geography exam, which I had been preparing for over the past few weeks, we had to learn the capital cities of Europe, the mountain ranges, peninsulas, rivers, seas and other coastal landmarks. Pretty much something like what I used to have to do in Year 9, apart from we only did the United Kingdom back then, and I got most of it wrong, apparently Edinburgh is not in Wales. So in order to avoid repeating this horrific failure I had revised for hours, the exam only counted for 10% of the overall mark, but I figured if I ace it then I have 10% to rely on, all I hope to do in any of my classes is pass them, that 10% could come in useful!

So I prepared thoroughly, and when the day came we went to the classroom and there were far more people there than usual, apparently exams boost attendance, no change there then from back home. However in this tiny room there was no space between desks, not like the organised rows of desks that I am used to sitting exams at, all equally spaced to make sure no one is tempted to cheat. The lecturer started by telling everyone that they could re-take the exam if they wanted to, whenever they wanted to, so no need to worry about it. Well that was a surprise, why did I bother preparing so well if I can just have another crack at it whenever I fancy? The papers were passed back and the lecturer quickly explained what we were meant to do, capital cities on this sheet, countries on this sheet, then whatever we wanted on the other two. People around me had started answering the questions despite not being told to start, again strange. I waited a moment to see if the all clear would come, but when it didn’t I just started too.

Although a quiet did descend on the class there were still people who stopped to turn to their neighbour and ask them what a certain answer was. That seemed to be perfectly okay, along with other forms of cheating, people had maps stashed under their chairs that they periodically pulled out and consulted for answers. All of this was very bizarre to me, although it may be worth remembering for the future, it seemed to be the done thing. Whenever people finished the test they stood up and handed in their answer sheet shuffling between the crammed desks until they made it out of the door. Once I was done I did the same, it seemed strange to be leaving an exam room before the end of an exam, even though it hadn’t really seemed like an exam with all of the cheating and lack of structure. It did make me feel a bit better about upcoming tests, if they are all this relaxed, but at the same time it did put me off a bit because ift seemed that no one else put in any effort in, but this counted towards my degree, so was important to me. It was a bit of a joke, but I suppose I will have to get used to it, perhaps the January exams will be different, we shall see.

UPDATE: Results

So this Monday, less than a week after I sat the exam I recieved the results. Well that is to say I recieved an e-mail which had been send to everyone, telling us that unless we recieved an e-mail saying that we had failed then our results were good enough for us to pass. No marks, or grades or percentages, so I'm not sure if I just scraped through or if I passed with flying colours. I'm not sure if I will ever recieve detailed results, which is a shame as I would kind of like to know where I can improve.