The Exams

Unfortunately I won't ever get to see my exam essays or my exact grades, but I did get to take my question papers away with me. I scanned them in for safekeeping and thought I'd upload them to the blog in case anyone is interested.

This also gives me the opportunity to record which questions I answered and what the exam process was like for my own memories, since I doubt I'll remember the details and it was definitely a life experience. I don't expect much of this will be terribly interesting, so feel free to skip over whatever is boring!

Exam 1: The Nature and Practice of Ecclesiastical History



This is the one I took on Thursday afternoon. The topic is what I studied at those seminars in my first term here (Fall 2005). I didn't love it, but there were some interesting parts.

Unfortunately you just can't answer "yes" or "no" to these questions, tempting though it might be! You are expected to compose a short essay in which you express your opinion on the question and support it in organized way with references to primary and secondary sources.

I think I generally did okay on showing my familiarity with the sources but I think my essays might have been a little rambling. I'm so accustomed to being able to go back and edit on the computer that I don't organize my thoughts right off the bat as well anymore.

I answered numbers A-1 (Acts), C-7 (Calvin) and E-13 (history written by survivors). Our professors said you get brownie points for answering a question in section E since it can be harder. I hope they're right! In my studying I prepared to answer on Lord Acton (question D-10) so I answered the E question mainly with reference to him, but also compared him to Acts, Eusebius and Bede in an attempt to show "analytical power" (one of the grading criteria).

Exam 2: The Council of Chalcedon (451)



This was my Friday morning exam, which I felt I did better on. I answered questions 1b, 1d, 1f, 3, and 7. Since the questions were more about facts than opinions, I was able to just write down what I knew in chronological order without having to construct a complex argument, which was nice.

As it says on the first page, I would have had to translate and comment on the Greek passage in order to continue on to the doctorate - woo hoo, didn't have to do that! I felt I could almost do it and considered trying for some brownie points, but in the end I don't think I could have done well enough without more advance preparation.

This exam topic is what was assigned to people studying the early part of Christian history. It's not what I would have chosen, since it includes complex theology as well as history. The council in question consisted of bishops debating over how Christ was both fully man and fully God at the same time (a doctrine established at the Council of Nicea). This rather impossible question gets into philosophical questions about whether God can suffer, what it means to be human, the relationship between body and soul, etc. Ack.

I prepared for this topic in Spring 2006 during the weekly tutorials with my supervisor Morwenna. We alternated weeks of writing an essay about the history of the council and translating assigned texts from Greek. I mainly studied for the exam by reading over my old essays and re-outlining the main themes.

The Exam Experience



Between 15 and 30 minutes before the exam, everyone assembles outside the Exam Schools (above) and inside the grand lobby area. It was like a sea of penguins in there with all of us in our academic dress. It's a terrible tragedy that you are never allowed to take photos inside the Exam Schools, even when exams aren't going on. It's a beautiful building with marble floors, classical columns and a large gallery over the lobby.

Most people had pink carnations pinned to their robes, meaning that they were in the middle of their exams. (The tradition is white for the first one, red for the last one and pink for all the ones in between.) One girl's pink carnation was very dead-looking - she must have had a lot of exams! Apparently they were available in the Covered Market, but I was too lazy to bother on Thursday and didn't have time on Friday, so went carnationless.

When you first enter the lobby, the exams are displayed by title on a big-screen TV (the same one that announced my lectures that were held here), along with the room number for each. Several different exams are often assigned to the same room: on the first day I was with Jewish Studies and on the second day I was in a much bigger room with many subjects, including Philosophy and Engineering.

Having learned which room to go to, you then wait in the lobby for your exam to be called over the intercom. Before my first exam I hung out with one of the guys from my study group and the second one I stood outside with David for most of the time then plunged in with a large herd to head straight to my assigned room.

Many people brought in some sheets of paper for last-minute cramming during the wait, but these have to be thrown away before entering the exam. At my second exam, the lobby was so crowded that I couldn't get to the recycle bins before I joined the herd. But there were two men scrutinizing everyone carefully for contraband as we filed into the exam rooms and I happily handed over my papers to one of them just as he looked about to grab it.

All you are allowed to bring in to the exam is a transparent pencil pocket with pens and your university card. You also have to bring your mortarboard since it is part of academic dress, but you can't put it on until graduation. It was a royal pain to carry that thing around.

In the exam room itself, I had an assigned desk with my name printed on a pink card that was taped to the top corner. I had to place my university card face up on the card and then during the exams people walk around and check that the names match and your face matches the picture on the card.

My exam paper was waiting for me on the desk along with two wide-ruled writing books. On the front of the writing books I filled in my candidate number, degree title and exam title. They never use your name for fairness purposes, although since I was the only one taking my second exam I think they'll know who it is! I could have as many writing books as I needed; they bring you an extra when you raise your hand.

There was also an interesting doohickey on the desk that looked sort of like cufflinks. I was quite puzzled about what it was until I read that you are supposed to fasten all your writing books together and it dawned on me. You put the doohickey through a punched hole in the upper left-hand corner in each of the books; pretty clever actually.

The exam lasts three hours and you can't leave the room in the first 30 minutes or the last 30 minutes. The first rule is apparently a response to many instances in which people would take one look at the test, panic, and leave immediately without trying to answer any questions. The second rule is to avoid distracting people who are trying desperately to finish writing before the time runs out.

In the first 30 minutes and last 30 minutes each subject must have an examiner present, which means a professor in our field wearing all their robes and academic finery and reading a book to pass the time. For me it was Charlotte Methuen, the head of the Ecclesiastical History program who also led our recent study sessions. The exam itself is conducted by the wonderfully-named "invigilator," who reads off the regulations in the beginning.

At exactly 9:30 (and 2:30), the invigilator says "You may now begin." And off we go! The sense of being timed definitely adds to the nerves, and at my first exam I had trouble concentrating at first. I ended up writing half a page and then crossing it out and starting over before I got into the flow of it. You have to turn in everything you write, including any scribbles, outlines, and rough draft, but it won't be graded.

In my first exam I used almost the entire three hours. I finished up my third essay with about 10 minutes left, then went back and added another paragraph to an earlier question. Thanks to a pre-exam stop at Pret for a can of Yoga Bunny Detox drink, I could have used a bathroom break for the entire last hour, but I didn't have time. I think only one person left during the whole thing.

In my second exam I was making good enough progress that I was able to leave for a bathroom break halfway through, which I did as much for the opportunity to stretch my legs and fingers as for the bathroom itself. I had to raise my hand to ask the invigilator to go, which was fun in an elementary school sort of way. I believe the rules are that no more than one person can leave the room at a time, so you don't discuss answers.

As I walked down the hall I noticed a little string hanging from my £1.25 velvet tie, pulled on it, and promptly unraveled about an inch of it. I couldn't break the resulting long string so I stopped at the desk in the lobby to use a pair of scissors. It all made for a much-needed break so I didn't really hurry.

This second test was so much more about endurance in writing than in complex thought, so I felt pretty confident I'd have plenty of time to finish. And unfortunately I was right, as I mentioned in my previous post, meaning that I left early and missed the fanfare. But it was definitely preferable to freaking out and not finishing in time.

After finishing the exam, you leave by different doors depending on whether it's your last exam. The first day I left out the side near High Street, which threw David for a loop because I thought I would come out the front. But he noticed the stream of penguins filing out and quickly found me. It was very pretty back there and a side of the Exam Schools I didn't even know about.

The second day I followed the signs (scrawled on big white boards in the hallways) that said "Finishers to Merton Street" with big arrows, which led me out the back of the building (right). As blogged about last time, I then hung out on a stone step on pretty Merton Street for about 15 minutes until David arrived.

Since the Exams

I am so glad to be done with those buggers! I sure have been enjoying my newfound freedom, although there sure still seems to be plenty of things I have to do. Sheesh, isn't that always the way. :)

But I got several new articles done on my website (including the Konark Sun Temple in India, five cool churches in Barcelona and an interactive satellite map of Barcelona) and read a travel book on Scandinavia before bed instead of a textbook. Nice.

We stocked up at Mark's Saturday morning, where they seemed to be having a bit of a grand opening for their newly renovated store. There was a live jazz singer singing nice tunes from a chair near the cereal.



On Sunday we watched the Formula One race, of course, and that was great fun. The rookie Lewis Hamilton got his first victory, with poor Fernando Alonso putting on a brave face from second place. As seen below, the weather wasn't exactly pretty and we were both feeling lazy so we didn't do much else.



But next weekend will be spent in London - there's an event hosted by O2 (David's employer) that we are actually invited to on Saturday, then we'll spend the night and sightsee on Sunday.