Get this: in my exam there were only a few of us. Some builders with strimmers were cutting down trees, so the noise of the strimmers I could hear despite the fact I had headphones on for a language exam with the volume on full. It was hugely distracting. Isn't there any other time that these strimmers can cut down trees? If I recollect the same thing happened last year and people complained. Clearly nothing happened. Why can't builders do the work in July or August? or early morning or after 6pm, not in May and June.
The invigilator was pacing up and down (I was right by the front) he think started checking my pass about 5 times through the exam. There were only 5of us taking the exam and we'd been in the exam room for about half an hour before the start of the exam chatting so he could have checked them then, and in fact our teacher had come in to verify who we were anyway. I think at one point he was checking my pencil case which contained only 2 biros and was see-through!
He started the exam late reading the instructions and then chalked up on the board 5 minutes later than his watch which was 5 minutes out of synch with the wall clock ie after the start of the exam he read instructions, so there were 3 different times: the clock when we actually started, what he verbally told us and what he chalked up on the board.
One exam I did a few years ago, they got some elderly woman who was blind, confused and had a speech impediment to read out the invigilator instructions, but she took so long the exam started 45 minutes late, which meant I was rushed and hassled for the afternoon exam. Basically I was fuming, because I wanted the lunchtime to go over some last minute revision and grab something to eat. Instead I was running into my afternoon exam in a frantic state.
One of my friends at her college they forgot to submit her IT coursework so she got a crappy mark so her uni place was cancelled. Once the college submitted it she got her grade she was predicted but by that stage she had to take a year out.
In one of my other friends at her school they lost her coursework.
Clearly I think the exam board should issue information sheets to schools: no noisey builders, only check ID once.
Also in my college despite there being warnings that if mobiles go off you will be excluded from exams, in one of my exams last year some boy had his go off and he was sitting behind me. It's not surprising really as in class the pupils mobiles go off and people just walk out of class to finish off the conversation. Really the teachers should massively clamp down on any mobiles in class or lessons. I mean - can't they switch it off for 2 hours? What is so important?
My other gripe is people turning up late for exams. In our college, we've had students stroll in half an hour late to an exam that is only an hour long. Then all the clatter of people leaving because they feel like it. I mean they know the exam is an hour or 2 hours, and all exams are tough, so why the turning up late and walking out.
Examiners work out strategically just how long it takes to do an exam, therefore people wandering out and even worse, the hullabaloo of them chatting along a corridor I find very selfish and distracting.
Turning up late and leaving early people should be shot. Especially when I know some of the students live 10 minutes away.