Down with exam time limit!

It's grating on me now.

Some exams I have like 20 minute spare, I had an hour spare once for Welsh Literature. But others like History I had to rush the ending, or I couldn't write conclusions to my essays.

Down with exam time limits!

Agreed, my OCR Economics and AQA ICT (especially ICT) involve me writing almost nonstop without a break, which is horrid and frustrating. Sad thing is, I have both exams on the same day and both in am slots next week, I feel sorry for my poor hand.

Examiners should really change the times around, because there are some inconsistancies definately :/

It's grating on me now.

Some exams I have like 20 minute spare, I had an hour spare once for Welsh Literature. But others like History I had to rush the ending, or I couldn't write conclusions to my essays.

In January for Psychology I missed a whole question because I ran out of time, and even after that my result came back 2 marks off an A!

It's a pain in the arse to have to write extremely fast non stop, without a break to even flex your wrist!

Exams should have two slots. AM slot and PM slot. And we should have aslong as it takes during that period. Or we should get surveys which ask how long much longer would be required if we never finished the exam in time, so they can work out on average how long we need.


I even tried to tell my head of year I was dyslexic for more time in the exam, but after getting an A in my English Lang and Lit GCSE and being an A Level English Literature candidate she laughed in my face

Down with exam time limits!

Well yes maybe so, but the thing about GCSE and A-levels is that it's mostly just regurgitation. If you had forever to do it, you could just literally learn and write down EVERYTHING, and everyone would get full marks. The time limit isn't ideal, as people say, you're not being examined on writing speed. But it is necessary to ensure students prioritise correctly, getting the important stuff in there. Because anyone can learn a bunch of facts, the point is to synthesise them in a coherent way. It's the same reason (aside from lecturers having limited time to mark) there are word limits for essays even here at university, otherwise you literally would get armies of *cough*Asians*cough* sleeping in the library every night of the week writing more and more.

I suppose people have a point with the people will write down EVERYTHING. But still, I really think it takes a really slow writer (like me) to appreciate how frustrating it is, some people maybe finish about on time, maybe don't get enough time to read back through everything thoroughly. But for me most of the time it's a struggle to finish in time, I remember my science GCSE's 1 set of exams was longer then the next set, I got A's in the first ones even though I didn't finish on time, then the next one I left like a good 10% of each paper, and got all High B's. So annoying. Not only that I have terrible handwriting, so I have to take my time with that to. I remember after my GCSE English paper my wrist was hurting so much I couldn't use a mouse the rest of the day, no exaggeration, not disaster I had trackpad lol but still.

So yeah, no 3-4 hour long exams, but with some exams an extra 10-30mins would help immensely! I'd say a 2 hour cap on all exams, even Maths I run out of time lol.

An interesting statistic though my psychology teacher told me. The national average for the last section of the unit 2 paper is 8/24, though it's the easiest section as you can guarentee what questions will come up!

Not only the time limits, but the whole system needs to be reformed! I say we all go on strike :P

I think it's unfair that after working on a subject for a whole year, with so much extra research, so much of the exam is based on simply 2 hours.
I screwed up in English Lit today, my strongest subject, and I was predicted a very high A. I was 1 mark off of full marks in my mock. I just find that under time constraints I can't help but panic, vomit everything I know on paper and a solid thesis goes out of the window. English is even one of the better exams for time limit. History is manic - A01 specifies fluency, but how are we supposed to be fluent when writing well and fluidly required time to consider what you're actually writing!
I know that many people dislike coursework, but I think there should be a system where we can choose between a heavily exam based course or a coursework based course and even out the results by UMS. I get much more satisfaction and better results when I know I can research, analyse and properly understand what I'm writing without a measly time limit.