My Last Exam Experience
Last Friday I faced the final exam of my university career. It was the kind of exam that creeps up on you, hiding in the shadows until a week before it happens and then revealing itself in all of it’s 60%-of-a-double-module glory. I was prepared in the way students often are: as long as three of the four questions I had revised for came up I would be fine. This, however, was my final exam, I had nothing to fear. Even if it was the worst I ever had to sit, it would be the last I’d ever sit. I was invincible. That’s what I kept telling myself. Everything was going to be fine.
My exams are often a little different to the norm because I have what the politically correct society dubbed “special needs”: I’m dyslexic. I get to sit in a different room to everyone else and I get 20% extra time, which I have only ever used once. I’m not complaining, I just don’t think I deserve it. The rooms are often less busy than the rooms for normal people but they’re usually either full normal classrooms or small halls. For this exam, I noted that the room listed on my timetable was a little different to normal but I thought little of it.
On the day, as I was ushered into the aforementioned room, I felt like a winner: here it was, the last time I’d be stuck in a sweaty room writing useless answers to stupid questions. I had achieved. Not everyone has a degree, you know. I was about to become part of the cultural elite. And I was about to do it in this room, with…
Oh.
4 other people. 3 of which hadn’t turned up yet. This was interesting. Exams, until now, had been what I’d consider rather public affairs - this move to a private environment was a little unnerving. If I were to look to either side, the invigilators would see me look. They would think I was cheating. If I looked up, I’d be looking straight into their eyes. They’d think I was asking for something. There was nothing I could do but to keep my head down and work until the exam was done. And oh god, what if I coughed? How the hell do you stop yourself from coughing for 90 minutes? It occurred to me now that I probably should have thought about this sort of thing before the exam started. The time was ticking away and I was probably supposed to be writing. I’d have to think about suppressing basic bodily functions at a more opportune time.
I kept on writing, and I became aware of the fact that I could see and hear every single thing the invigilators did. Of course, for the majority of the time that I was there, they did very little: that’s their job. At one point, however, roughly halfway through the exam, they began whispering to each other. The topic was unclear. Then, one of them passed a note to the other, gestured across the room, and I heard her whisper,
“The one with the long hair, that one”
I thought about the five people in the room. No, no, no, no. Just me. I was the one with long hair. The invigilators were talking about me. Why would they do that? I thought hard. Someone else was doing the same paper as me. Two others were leaving at the same time as me. None of us started early. There were no professional features that would mark me out against the others. They must, surely, have been talking for their own amusement. What was I supposed to do now? I’d been talked about by invigilators in the middle of an exam. I had been singled out, marked with a big red cross. Suddenly it felt like thousands of eyes were focused on me. I rubbed my face as casually as possible to see if there was something hilarious on it. Nothing. I slyly looked at my t-shirt to check it for stains. Nothing. I was clearly the centre of some hilarious joke that I was not privy too. I had no choice but to struggle on with my exam, feeling worryingly like the middle of the universe. Was I one of the main characters in a sitcom I’d somehow missed on Channel 4? Oh god, I hoped not. My hair was a mess. The exam, thankfully, was easy to the point where it did not require concentration. I left early and walked quickly away.