Final Exams

Our students have just finished their final exams for the fall semester. The academic calendar here is rather unusual from an American perspective. After 11 weeks of fall classes there was a month-long Christmas break. Then two weeks of exams to see how much the students remembered over the break.

The spring term began this week, immediately following the fall exam period. But this term is even more unusual. It will go for only eight weeks before a five week spring break, two more weeks of classes, and then three weeks of exams.

Another key difference is that most classes (called "modules" here) have only one or two student evaluations each term. That means that a student's entire grade for the class will depend on, perhaps, one paper and one final exam; a couple of papers; or perhaps a single paper or a single final exam. That puts a lot of pressure on students at finals!

One of our students blogged about her exams, and (with her permission) I've stolen some of her report:

"I was very nervous for my first exam at Nottingham. Aside from the unpleasant thought that this exam was worth 100% of my grade, the nerves came from the fear of the unknown. I had been told that exams were held in large lecture halls or in the gym because they have several modules take exams at the same time. ...


"In fact, it was basically like taking the ACT [American College Test, a standardized U.S. university entrance exam] all over again but everyone had different exams.... But I was worried. What if the questions were way harder than I had anticipated? Did I need pencil or pen? How much paper did I have to work with? ...


"We were finally allowed into the Great Hall. Each test taker was an assigned seat. I had seat 1. On my desk was a booklet of lined paper, my test questions (flipped over, of course), and a half sheet of paper with my name, ID number and a place for me to sign. This half sheet was proof that it was the correct [student] who showed up for my... exam and not an impostor. Just to be safe, we had to present our ID cards for the moderators to compare ID numbers as they collected the signed attendance sheets.

"[Five] minutes to go time. A short, grey haired man in a tweed suit jacket and khaki trousers stood at the front of the hall. [Stereo]Typical English man. He told us we had two hours to complete the exam. We couldn't leave the hall within the first hour or during the last fifteen minutes of the allotted exam time....
"Begin! Everyone feverishly flipped their exam question papers. I flipped mine over with less enthusiasm. I read through the questions, noting which ones I could adequately answer. I only needed to respond to three questions and lucky for me, I had found four questions I knew I could answer well. I began writing. An hour and 46 minutes later I had completed my three questions. I set down my pen and stretched out my hand.  Since I was within the 15 minute "YOU CAN'T LEAVE" zone, I just sat at my desk and stared at my completed answers....


"So I had done it. I had survived the exam process.... So far so good.... Exam results come out mid-February, so I have a few weeks to wonder if I can really cut in the UK university system."

Fortunately, our students all report feeling similarly about their exams, and we trust that they will all get good news in a couple weeks.