Glitches in the final exam

for modern history were reported yesterday. Apparently the examiners thought it would be interesting and different to put a short video up for students to watch. Accessing the video was vital to answering an apparently compulsory question. Due to a glitch some students were not able to access the video. They also had problems with other questions. 

These are year 12 students. Their examination results will affect their chances of getting in to their preferred course at university. Their results may even affect what they are able to do for the rest of their lives, how much they will earn, their place in the world. We all know that. For all the examination board says they will not be disadvantaged they have been. The stress alone is a disadvantage. They will go into every other exam wondering if something else will happen.

I wonder what would happen to me now. In order to try and give me equality with other students  I was allowed to type my exams once I went to university. In my last year there someone stole my typewriter from the cupboard it was locked in at the law school. This happened  the night before my first exam that year. Now stealing a favourite pen would have been bad enough but I knew my typewriter and I knew it well. I was comfortable with my typewriter. I could peck the answers out without thinking about the act of typing. I could concentrate on the answers.

I didn't quite panic but I came close to it. This was law school. We could take "examination summaries" in with us. (Examination summaries are just that - a summary of what we had managed to learn during the year.) I never opened mine but I took a lot of deep breaths, told myself not to panic and said to myself. "I know the work. If I can't type fast enough on another typewriter I can do it by showing I know my examination summary backwards as well as forwards and that I can apply the principles I have been taught. I can do it. I have to do it. If I don't do it then I have wasted all the effort I put in from when I started.

Yes, I managed - I even managed to graduate with honours - but I was an older student. I had been through more exams than I care to think about. I was not a student in my teens sitting those very important school exams for the first time. 

I also had the support of all but one member of staff, a man who was disliked by other staff as well as the students. He ignored me. Other staff gave me smiles as I went into the building and one or two said things like, "Good luck." Even the notoriously difficult professor in one subject looked in as I was rolling the last sheet out of the typewriter and asked if I thought I had coped. He sounded genuinely concerned.

I thought of all this as I listened to one of the students who was affected by the glitch.

"It was bad Cat but it could have been much worse. Our teachers were there, not Mrs ....(who teaches the subject), but the others were there before we went in and Mrs... was there afterwards and told us not to worry, not to let it affect our other exams. The invigilators didn't panic. They handled it really well. I thought how it could have been last Thursday in some schools when teachers went out on strike and how that would have made it much worse. At least our teachers didn't do anything like that. I'm okay I think. I worked really hard at it. If I need an extra point then I can appeal."

I hope she doesn't need to go through the stress of an appeal. She should do really well. I have seen her work and it is good, very good. It should not have happened and I hope it doesn't upset the students too much. I hope they have managed to learn something positive through the experience. I also hope that the parents of the affected students gave their children a hug and said, "Well done."