So, I'm in the midst of exam season and I'm taking a well-earned (honest) break from revising to display my shock about Japanese exams...
England is the country that invented the exam (thank you Oxford University, we're all so grateful...) so I think we've got the way to do them down by now.
I was under the impression that going to a large room in the school, such as the gym or assembly hall and sitting at your own individual table, everyone facing the same way so you can't communicate or make eye contact or whatever was commonplace throughout the world. It would seem sensible - minimise the ability to cheat by having people sitting at least 3 feet away from each other, so you can easily tell that they're trying to look at someone else's work.
I was both surprised, and a little disconcerted to see that exams in Japan are just sat in the classroom we normally have our lessons in, sitting next to each other as we normally would. Not only this, but we were actually able to communicate across the classroom to give answers (but believe me, trying to get somebody to realise that you're mouthing 四国 is possibly the most challenging thing I've done yet in Japan... Yes I'm looking at you Dean Spooner and Kristy Jones.), and really quite easily sneak illicit dictionaries and so forth into our tests. In my listening exam, I found myself sharing an electronic dictionary with Artem sitting next to me (this transpired to be worse than useless, as I can't read the Russian definitions, and found myself worrying that I'd forgotten what English looked like.)
I found myself so stunned by this, and a little cheated that my "hard work" could potentially be plagiarised, that I made every effort to keep my answers covered (communicating across a room in mouthed gestures doesn't count, obviously!).
This method of exam taking takes me back to the year 10 kanji tests we'd have every week in Mr Verfuerth's lessons (oh Mr V. you brilliant, crazy German, how I miss you!) where we'd write the answers on a piece of paper which would be taped (or sometimes written directly on) the back of someone's shirt. About halfway through, this person would remove their blazer, and the answers would trickle back through the classroom and we'd all come out with full marks... What pros we were!
At first, I assumed that this was just the way our own Japanese lessons were going to be tested. But then other, non-Japanese classes started having exams in the same method. So I changed my theory to it being a Japanese sense of trust (not entirely unlikely, I thought, since the crime rate in Japan is so incredibly low) and left it there.
However, in asking around, I found that this is the system in America as well - exams are just conducted in the normal classroom without much in the way of anti-cheating measures. Thankfully, it seems that Australians know what they're doing and do exams properly, segregating each student and so forth. Talking to Americans about this, the general view is that if you're resourceful to get away with cheating, then more power to you and you shouldn't be punished. Is it just me, or are all British exam-takers feeling a little hard done by and mistrusted at the moment?
But then, surely this just means that our degrees are worth more? If we come out with a First Class Honours (that's honours, America) when we wrote our dissertations alone, and sat our exams in total silence and solitude, surely that is much more indicative of our ability than that of someone who gets the equivalent grade in America by using his neighbours' answers as well.
Homework: discuss.
By the by, this was typed on my little Android smartbook, which appears to have no spell checker... Apologies for any appalling mistakes in spelling!
Coming soon:
England is the country that invented the exam (thank you Oxford University, we're all so grateful...) so I think we've got the way to do them down by now.
I was under the impression that going to a large room in the school, such as the gym or assembly hall and sitting at your own individual table, everyone facing the same way so you can't communicate or make eye contact or whatever was commonplace throughout the world. It would seem sensible - minimise the ability to cheat by having people sitting at least 3 feet away from each other, so you can easily tell that they're trying to look at someone else's work.
I was both surprised, and a little disconcerted to see that exams in Japan are just sat in the classroom we normally have our lessons in, sitting next to each other as we normally would. Not only this, but we were actually able to communicate across the classroom to give answers (but believe me, trying to get somebody to realise that you're mouthing 四国 is possibly the most challenging thing I've done yet in Japan... Yes I'm looking at you Dean Spooner and Kristy Jones.), and really quite easily sneak illicit dictionaries and so forth into our tests. In my listening exam, I found myself sharing an electronic dictionary with Artem sitting next to me (this transpired to be worse than useless, as I can't read the Russian definitions, and found myself worrying that I'd forgotten what English looked like.)
I found myself so stunned by this, and a little cheated that my "hard work" could potentially be plagiarised, that I made every effort to keep my answers covered (communicating across a room in mouthed gestures doesn't count, obviously!).
This method of exam taking takes me back to the year 10 kanji tests we'd have every week in Mr Verfuerth's lessons (oh Mr V. you brilliant, crazy German, how I miss you!) where we'd write the answers on a piece of paper which would be taped (or sometimes written directly on) the back of someone's shirt. About halfway through, this person would remove their blazer, and the answers would trickle back through the classroom and we'd all come out with full marks... What pros we were!
At first, I assumed that this was just the way our own Japanese lessons were going to be tested. But then other, non-Japanese classes started having exams in the same method. So I changed my theory to it being a Japanese sense of trust (not entirely unlikely, I thought, since the crime rate in Japan is so incredibly low) and left it there.
However, in asking around, I found that this is the system in America as well - exams are just conducted in the normal classroom without much in the way of anti-cheating measures. Thankfully, it seems that Australians know what they're doing and do exams properly, segregating each student and so forth. Talking to Americans about this, the general view is that if you're resourceful to get away with cheating, then more power to you and you shouldn't be punished. Is it just me, or are all British exam-takers feeling a little hard done by and mistrusted at the moment?
But then, surely this just means that our degrees are worth more? If we come out with a First Class Honours (that's honours, America) when we wrote our dissertations alone, and sat our exams in total silence and solitude, surely that is much more indicative of our ability than that of someone who gets the equivalent grade in America by using his neighbours' answers as well.
Homework: discuss.
By the by, this was typed on my little Android smartbook, which appears to have no spell checker... Apologies for any appalling mistakes in spelling!
Coming soon:
- Ten reasons why Japan is better than England (Yes, I am working on it, but I'm running out of reasons, and I'm also trying to write it in Japanese too)
- Kobe (parts 1 & 2 - provided I can afford to go to Kobe a second time)
- A week of Japanese meals (mostly photographic, you lucky buggers!)
- The O'Dwyer invasion
- Sumo
- My week in food
