GCSE exams during lunch break

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our exams are in the public/college leisure centre which is joint to our college so we have members of the public coming in and out of the buliding all the time (changing rooms & swimming pool are next 2 the hall we are in) so the doors are always being slammed shut nd excited little kids shouting!

Reply 21

Morgan141

kicakicks

we have lots of noisy birds. it is very annoying. and people sniffing/coughing loads drives me mad . . . i know they can't really help it but i want to hit them!! and does anyone else find it sooooo unbelieveably boring when you finishi an exam really early and have to sit still for ages when you could be revising for another one?? its such a waste of time!! grrrr.

Yeah that's the worst thing, it doesn't usually happen on the main exams like english or maths but with rubbish like PE and ICT you finish in about half the time...

Reply 22

Zinc11

It's okay if I am in the hall. It's pretty silent there and much cooler.

If I am in the classroom (I am quite often because of being at the end of the register) then it's really noisy and hot. During biology, there was a discussion about Liverpool and Chelsea or something like that going on outside the classroom loud and clear.

It doesnt bother me most times.

Reply 23

bohemian

We have all ours in the sports hall, which is massive and as soon as someone coughs, it echoes for about 5 seconds. The light also gives some people migranes. They lock all our bags and stuff in a room which joins onto the sports hall, and has a glass window, so all the extra time people can hear us talking about the exam once we're out. The rest of the school all have exams during the week before half term (from year 3 up to year 10) which makes it worse, because then you have a constant stream of people coming and going and screaming right outside...at least now we just get the last 10 minutes of lunch break, and when people go to lessons after assembley in the morning.

Worst thing is that there are up to 9 exams (!) in the same hall at any time, so even though everyone is silent, you seem to get "5 minutes left for XXX" every 10 minutes, because there are always extra-time people in every exam, and people who go out for whatever reason and come back in, so the teachers are contantly stamping around, and if you're in the front row or a side row, you get them whispering right near you all the time. Really irritating!

Reply 24

arpeggio

When I'm really into an exam, I don't really notice anything around me - but then there's always that point when you stop writing for a bit, and you can hear how noisy everything is! Everyone, and I mean everyone, keeps on coughing/sneezing/sniffing... I really don't think they should have exams when there's so much hayfever about. And the school across the road has a clock that chimes every hour which is really distracting, especially at 12:00 when it chimes for AGES! The hall's right by the office, so you can constantly hear phones ringing etc. Really annoying! But I think I'm actually fairly lucky since the afternoon exams start at 1:30 and lunch ends at 1:25, so we miss all the lunchtime noise.

Reply 25

atilena

Humph. They built our lovely new music room next to the exam hall. Soundproof my a***. I used to like flutes, but the one I could hear today was playing every scale known to man about 5 times each. Urgh.

The playing field is just outside it and our lunch time starts ten minutes into exams and lasts for an hour. Is annoying!

NM

Reply 26

kellywood_5

GCSE exams are held in the sports hall, which is right next to the PE changing rooms, so we quite often heard the kids who had PE talking and the PE teachers screaming at them to be quiet. To be fair, most of the noise probably came from inside the hall though, with people coughing deliberately and phones going off. We also had a pigeon flapping about on the ceiling in our maths exam- God knows how it got there! AS and A2 exams are in the assembly hall and there's usually a fair bit of noise from kids and teachers walking across the balcony above it to get to their lessons. Afternoon exams start at 1.30, right in the middle of lunchtime, so it's usually quite noisy for the first 15 minutes until the start of lessons at 1.45. Some exams also finish later than 3.30, so there's noise from everyone else going home. Morning exams start at 9.00 and lessons start at 9.10, so again you get noise from people going to lessons and there's a chance of them running into break time. Also, the bell is really loud and ours always rings 3 times for some reason, in case we were too deaf to hear it the first 2 times :rolleyes:

As others have said, when the timing is different for Foundation and Higher or there's more than one exam on at the same time, which happens quite a lot at A-level, you get invigilators saying how long there is left for each one, which is quite distracting. I hate finishing exams really early and sitting there with nothing to do, although that's only happened in GCSE maths (because I gave up!) GCSE Spanish and GCSE and AS French. Doing exams in the heat is definitely the worst thing for me though- it was absolutely baking when I did my maths exam!

Reply 27

Cataclysm

I think for the sake of us getting some peace, armed guards should stand outside the halls and shoot on sight anyone who makes sound a decibel higher than the designated limit, tis' will be a killing zone. :p:

Reply 28

theshape

We have all our exams in the assembly hall which is right next to the canteen. Normally its dead quiet except for about 5 minutes when the rest of the school is changing lessons. But then in the afternoon exam after lunch we can hear the dinner ladies cleaning up, stacking chairs and talking, which is pretty annoying.

On the day of our RE exam it was 6th form muck up day and they set the fire alarm off twice during the exam. And then we had the Headmaster talking over the intercom thing telling us not to evacuate the building. Let me tell you, having a frickin fire alarm ringing in your ears and echoing and being amplified by the hall has to be one of the most distracting exam experiences ever! But at least we got 5 minutes extra time added on at the end of the exam, which was kinda lucky because i wouldn't have finished the paper otherwise.

Reply 29

x---Emz

I have the problem of dinner being at the same time of dinner break and break time. And we have two dinner breaks, one for each set of year groups. But we have exams in the sports hall, which is next to the field on the edge which is away from the noise which is cool

Reply 30

calcium878

there's only 30 people in my year group (independent school), so we thankfully get the nice cosy "assembly hall", which is much better than our crappy sports hall. lunch break finishes at 1.45pm so we don't start our afternoon exams until 2pm. likewise, lessons begin in the morning at 9.15am so we begin morning exams at 9.30am. also, our school is like six different buildings and the hall happens to be in the centre, so we have signs telling others to be quiet, usually they are obeyed, but ever so often you hear a loudmouth...as you'd expect

Reply 31

butterfly_girl_5

Cataclysm

butterfly_girl did you use to be realme_5? Why'd you change your username?

it was the same as my e-mail address and I wanted not to appear obvious

Reply 32

playingcards

Looks like I'm pretty lucky. We sit ours in the college hall, which is about half a mile away from the lower school - and all the college students are on study leave too. Its close to the road but there's hardly ever any noticeable noise - apart from a chavmobile that came roaring up the street during English today, with its 'banging' music.

Reply 33

ebam_uk

I thought if your phone went off in the actually exam hall you would be banned from taking the paper. Isnt it a really serious offense to have mobiles in the exam room.

Reply 34

x_stu_x

We have builders drilling banging and singing right outside the hall - like literally 10m away

Reply 35

dezlee

During the exam there was this motor bike that kept on making noise:

vroom-vroom

It gets so annoying

Reply 36

adorkable

Our exams are in our sports hall and usually start 10 minutes before the end of dinner, so its not too bad. But there right next to the p.e department and the changing rooms, today I was in an exam and you couldnt hear any noise at all from the changing rooms (for once) until this one really nasty pe teacher came in and started screaming youve got 10 seconds to get changed and get out ur being too noisy 1.... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... etc;, that put me off soo much.

Reply 37

INXS_girl

We have half term right now so the school is empty ((its awesome we revise before the exam on the comfy couches in the reception)). Also our exams are sometimes on the weekend so that we take them the same time as you guys in the UK ((My school is international))

Reply 38

Krystal

my misery is nothing compared to yours but I have the bell ringing in my ear on several occasions and I had several heart attacks!

Reply 39

x---Emz

ebam_uk

I thought if your phone went off in the actually exam hall you would be banned from taking the paper. Isnt it a really serious offense to have mobiles in the exam room.

You can have then in the exam room. Mines normally switched off in my bag, but if I forget before I sit down I hand it in straight away.

There was a mobile phone incident in the PE exam. One lads went off in his pocket. His phone is being checked to see if there is anything on it that would have helped him to cheat so no-one knows whats going to happen about it yet