Day 119: Exams are over!

Okay, so people keep asking me how exams were, and the word I use most often to describe them is "funny." How can exams be funny? I don't hear you ask. Well, it's like this:

Monday morning we had our exam for our all-round Chinese class (which focuses mostly on grammar). Last week, she told us specifically what the questions would be on, to the point of saying, "Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of this text will be in the exam." So it was really quite simple. The questions were also really quite easy. Fill in the blank in this sentence, using one of the words in brackets: I would love to go, [BLANK] I can't afford it (but, and, therefore, yesterday). I mean really. And the CHEATING that was going on was unbelievable. I mean to the point that both Nikki and I at one point had to put our head on the desks to keep from laughing too much. A girl sitting near Nikki kept looking at Nikki's answers. In spite of the fact that Nikki and this girl were doing different papers. People were texting each other answers, shouting across the room in Russian to get answers, passing notes, talking etc. It was mental. One girl had her textbook and notes under her desk. And what did the teachers do? Oh yes, nothing. I was too stunned to do anything other than laugh. Best bit - I had finished, and my teacher took my paper, looked through it, gave it back and asked if I wanted to check it again. I said no, I have already checked it, as it's unfair if I get told there are errors and given the chance to correct them, it was my decision to hand my paper in early. She looked at me and asked me if I wanted to check again. I said no again. She asked me again. I said no again. She said, "Right, okay, you can go home then."

Next up was listening, so we went to the listening room, sat down spaced out (this is just my class mind, the Kazakhs sat playing music loudly, sitting next to each other and talking about us in Russian. Then the teachers got there, and we sat around for a while. Then they handed out the topics for the oral exam. My first one was something about which I could deinitely not have spoken. But we're allowed to switch once, and the second one wasn't great, although I could have spoken about it. But we were all sat in a big group discussing the upcoming exam (which seemed to be encouraged almost), and discussing what our topics were, so I switched with Tobin as he didn't like his, so mine was "What do you normally do on Sundays? Decribe step by step your day." The exams started. During the exams, other teachers would go over and interrupt, the Kazakhs were still playing music and talking seriously loudly, and during my exam, the teacher got up and left when I was mid-sentence, without excusing herself or telling whoever needed her that it had to wait two minutes (as I wasn' even going to talk that long). But whatever.

Then it was listening, which was a joke. We answered a lot of the questions before they were read out - it was all stuff we'd heard before, or common sense. For example, "Which is not true: The north is cold, the south is hot, the north-east is hot." Hmm, let's see. The north-east, sharing a border with Siberia, is probably not that warm. Again, there was rampant cheating, to the extent that once the exam was over, one girl had three other people's papers around her, comparing answers and writing in her answers. This was pointed out to a teacher who said, "You shouldn't do that" then let her finish copying. But it was quite nice when people shouted answers, as they were getting them wrong, and it made me feel much better :)

We were finished for the day, so we all headed home, to get ready for a big event that I will tell you more about in the next post.

Then yesterday we had our reading exam. As a test, Nikki kept her textbook on her table to see if the teacher would say anything. She didn't. But the book got in Nikki's way, so she got rid of it anyway. This paper was even easier, and there's one section I swear the majority of readers of this could get pass-marks in. It was supposed to be work out the meaning of the character from the radical. But it was actually, write which of these pictures is part of the character. And I trust most of you could find the 心 in 想 or 木 in 机. I mean really, we're intermediate now. Again, cheating, people coming in late, people we're allowed to leave to go to the toilet etc. A joke.

But hey, I'm confident I got over 90 overall, which converts to a 76.5+ in Newcastle, which replaces a 56 from second year, which would make my average to 76.4, up from 73, which is nice. And means that in 4th year, if I get 67 or more, I get a first for my degree :D Of course, it's possible I get higher next semester here, or in fact got higher than 90. And of course, my average will be 67 in my 4th year, so I think a 1st is definitely achievable :D Especially as I'm sure I'm dropping French now - while I would like to keep it on, it's just too much work. If I can keep my Spanish at a 70 (or higher), Chinese at an 87 (or higher), it means my other three modules need to average 51. Woohoo!

And while we're on the topic, modules I'm thinking of taking next year:

Level C Chinese
Screen Translation: Language, Culture and Subtitling (Chinese)
Level D Spanish
Either Inter-American Relations since the Spanish-American War or Culturas de la Juventad en Latinamerica, Espana y Portugal (Youth cultures in Latin America, Spain and Portugal)
then either Syntax and History of Spanish or Recent Spanish and Mexican Cinema

But of course, I don't have the list of modules available next year, they may add some, or stop some. So we'll see. That's just provisional thoughts.