Exam conditions: Protocol & Language

The official exam season, from mid-October to early December, has long-reaching tentacles that start to dominate many other areas of school culture. Aside from the timetable itself, there are significant changes to the hours of sleep (both late nights & early mornings are the norm) and all school meal times, for a start.

There are the daily arrivals of all external invigilators and the occasional visits of the official exam 'scouts', who appear look for any evidence 'malpractice'.  On a twice daily basis, the Headteacher drives to and from the police station to collect and deliver exam papers held at a guarded container.

But it is also the language and reactions of both teachers and students which bring interesting seasonal changes at this time - adding unexpected linguistic colour and spice.

As the atmosphere heats up, during the intense revision period in September & October, teachers talk about:

• 'seriously cooking the students ... we're not baking them now, but we are cooking them. In fact, it's time to add some fire!' 
• 'we are pushing all the information in and getting them fired up for these examinations'
• 'we need to put them under pressure. Mock exams are supposed to be hard, so that they may even fail badly. In fact these results will 'mock' them and make them to be serious.' 

One group of complacent students was publicly warned that 'if you're not going to change your behaviour, go and visit a prison, hospital and a mortuary and see if that's better.' Tough Love often sounds very tough.

When it comes to the exams themselves, a straightforward exam is 'cheap'. 

'How was Physics today?' 'The Physics practical was very cheap.'  'And General Paper was approachable. We all had a question to attend to.' Other papers may be a 'walkover' or 'appropriate'.

Then there's the full range of 'fair', 'ok' and 'somehow' - used interchangeably

• somehow fair
• somehow OK
• somehow, just somehow ...
• somehow not easy

Let's hope this exam period has been 'somehow good', but definitely not 'too tricky', overall. February will be the earliest time to find out, when results are released.