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Damn exam prep people. Need help..
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Basically everything went wrong at the beginning of my exam today and I want to write a letter of complaint to my school. Thing is, I'm no good at letter writing and saying what it is I want to say. I tried but it's all mumble jumble. If anyone out there likes writing letters and can do it well, could you please help me? Here's what I have - you'll be able to get the jist of everything that went wrong once reading it.
Thanks if you can help
Dear Mr Williams,
I feel it is necessary to let you know how irritated I was at the beginning of today’s afternoon psychology exams. Not only did the teacher have no idea what he was doing, but the invigilators didn’t either. We weren’t given time to fill in the front of the paper and had to do it in the hour we had to complete the first paper. We were also given all three of our papers at the same time which meant we had lots of paper on the table and could easily have got confused. When the hour was up for the first exam they told us and came to collect the paper, but then we were expected to carry straight onto the next paper, again filling in the information on the front and reading the instructions in time allocated for the exam only. We weren’t told to continue after they’d collected the first paper, we had to work it out for ourselves as we were waiting for them to tell us to start on the next one but didn’t, which wasted time. For most of the second exam one invigilator was writing something and not looking around the hall and I spent roughly 5 minutes or more trying to get the other’s attention.
The initial annoyance was that it seemed no one knew exactly what was going on, the teacher didn’t even know that the year elevens were supposed to be in the hall at the same time, and they too didn’t have time to enter their details on the front and no one prepared them in the proper way.
A mobile phone went off 3 times in this exam. At the beginning of other exams we are usually taken through the drill of filling in the information, reading the instructions, the teacher asking if we have any notes on us, if our mobiles are turned off, if we have any problems or questions and then if there is any reason why some feels they cannot start – none of this happened. Maybe if it had, the mobile phone going off could have been prevented.
I am very disappointed as when I went into this exam I was feeling quite positive but with everything that went on I became flustered and confused. I believe this could have affected the work I did in my exam, bringing it down to a poorer standard.
The disruptions were felt by everyone in the hall not only myself. I know this as afterwards I heard more people complain about the start of the exam, than the exam itself.
I am writing this letter to you because I feel that you should prevent this from happening again. My previous exams have been handled in a much better way and I was able to start feeling confident and ready. Perhaps you should always have a high-ranking member of staff there for the beginning of the exam at least.
Thanks if you can help
Dear Mr Williams,
I feel it is necessary to let you know how irritated I was at the beginning of today’s afternoon psychology exams. Not only did the teacher have no idea what he was doing, but the invigilators didn’t either. We weren’t given time to fill in the front of the paper and had to do it in the hour we had to complete the first paper. We were also given all three of our papers at the same time which meant we had lots of paper on the table and could easily have got confused. When the hour was up for the first exam they told us and came to collect the paper, but then we were expected to carry straight onto the next paper, again filling in the information on the front and reading the instructions in time allocated for the exam only. We weren’t told to continue after they’d collected the first paper, we had to work it out for ourselves as we were waiting for them to tell us to start on the next one but didn’t, which wasted time. For most of the second exam one invigilator was writing something and not looking around the hall and I spent roughly 5 minutes or more trying to get the other’s attention.
The initial annoyance was that it seemed no one knew exactly what was going on, the teacher didn’t even know that the year elevens were supposed to be in the hall at the same time, and they too didn’t have time to enter their details on the front and no one prepared them in the proper way.
A mobile phone went off 3 times in this exam. At the beginning of other exams we are usually taken through the drill of filling in the information, reading the instructions, the teacher asking if we have any notes on us, if our mobiles are turned off, if we have any problems or questions and then if there is any reason why some feels they cannot start – none of this happened. Maybe if it had, the mobile phone going off could have been prevented.
I am very disappointed as when I went into this exam I was feeling quite positive but with everything that went on I became flustered and confused. I believe this could have affected the work I did in my exam, bringing it down to a poorer standard.
The disruptions were felt by everyone in the hall not only myself. I know this as afterwards I heard more people complain about the start of the exam, than the exam itself.
I am writing this letter to you because I feel that you should prevent this from happening again. My previous exams have been handled in a much better way and I was able to start feeling confident and ready. Perhaps you should always have a high-ranking member of staff there for the beginning of the exam at least.
0
Comments
You're right to complain, it's the school's job to make sure the exam conditions are met and kept for everyone's benefit
Good luck :thumb:
*do you suffer from extreme tension, distraction, ADHD maybe?
*Were you given the adequete time, yes or no?
*were you really in good shape to do the test
if i was an examiner i would dismiss that letter immediately sorry just my opinion
It's so rude of them to waste your time like that. You need to complain so that it doesn't happen again in future exams.
I had psychology today too
i mean how much did you miss out on...1 hour or a few minutes?
although your letter sounds fine... i think you should emphazise the effect it had on you / others taking the exam though as a direct result of your schools actions. it is not however their responsbility to ensure no mobile phones go off - no STUDENT should take a mobile phone into an exam... and the student(s) responsible should be penalised.
I did 'put my head down and do the test' as best I could after all the disruption. There's about 10 boxes you need to fill in at the beginning, not just your name. They didn't explain how to do the exam, what order to do it in etc. Everyone's concentration was blown. So yes, we composed ourselves and got on with it but stuff like this shouldn't happen.
The guy who did it doesn't sound like he knew what to do, but are you writing this to try and get the examiner to mark your paper sympathetically? It's just if you are I don't see it happening, it was unfortunate though, sorry.
BTW, if a mobile went off during any of our exams the person gets disqualified from all exams taken under that board. Noone got punished for their mobiles going off?
why didn't you say that in the first place then...seriously though...every exam i've ever done just askes for candidate number, test number and centre number...if you feel you lost out on valuable writing time because of this then yes complain though don't use the "i was distracted" excuse, it just doesn't rub tbh
and i already said put the paper they give you underneath the paper you're working on and just put your head down...sorry if i caused offence becase i'm not meaning too..really like...
I am writing in reference to the (insert exam board name here) A-Level Psychology examination held on (insert date).
The way in which the invigilators conducted the running of the examination was nothing short of unprofessional.
During the 3 hours exam I noted the following breaches of the rules:
* Students were not reminded of the examination board's code of conduct
* There was insufficient time allowed for filling in details on the front of the examination paper
* The invigilators were disorganised and at times were loud and disruptive
* It was difficult to gain the attention of the invigilators
(And so on and so forth....)
I ask that you investigate this incident and act accordingly to prevent it occuring again.
Yours sincerely
Whatever your name is
____
Your letter rambles too much and is quite repetitive. You need to stick to the point. Also, don't bring personal things into it. I wouldn't mention that you went into the exam hall feeling positive... it's not relevant.
I thought you didn't always need to fill in your details on the front? For me, sometimes they are done for you. Like yesterday, we sat down, the teacher gave out the papaers checking that we were sat where we're meant to. Told us how long we had and told us to make sure that all our details were correct, (Which they should be) made us get on with the test, walked up and down - which I can't stand, told us to check our work and told us when we had 5 minutes left.
Does anyone else find you have far too much time? I had an exam which lasted for 1 and a half hours and I was finished in just under an hour. I actually remember (Monday, I think) whilst we were doing some maths mocks, the teacher thought that we had far too much time and told us to check everything through properly. We were meant to have the full hour (for the real exam) but because this was during our maths lesson, we only have 45 minutes - which is still too much for me, tbh.
This is better (but I would never call a teacher 'unprofessional', that isn't for you to judge):
Dear Mr Williams,
I am writing in order to express my disappointment at the invigilation of my recent Psychology examination [date/time/board etc].
Firstly, I feel it is necessary to point out that the invigilators did not seem to organise the paperwork or explain to us the exact timings of the 3 papers we sat. We were also given all three of our papers at the beginning of the session but no time was allowed for the collection of the papers and completion of the front page. We were expected to carry straight onto the next paper as the first one was being collected but this was never explained to us.
Secondly, for most of the second exam one invigilator was writing something and not looking around the hall and I spent roughly 5 minutes or more trying to get the other’s attention.
At the beginning of other exams we are usually taken through the drill of filling in the information, reading the instructions, the teacher asking if we have any notes on us, if our mobiles are turned off, if we have any problems or questions and then if there is any reason why someone feels they cannot start – none of this happened and as a result, we were disturbed by a mobile phone on a number of occasions.
I would apppreciate a reply to this letter, or perhaps a meeting in person to discuss the concerns of the students.
Yours sincerely,
etc.
Whether you take these suggestions or not, keep your letter professional.
Last actual paragraph, spelling error kentish ;p "some" needs to be "someone" ;p
"same beginning of the session" i'd put as "the beginning of the first session"
Well, this thread needed someone to be pedantic ;p
Thrice is an excellent word.