Following on from my brief, updatey journal, (Lari pay attention, this is important), in which I outlined some of the recent happenings here, I move to expanding on the subject of exams in my university (yes yes, all in good time Treaks).

Well, there isn't much to say; they were a shambles. For all of the exams (except speaking) the teachers were telling us either what passages to revise, or what specifically would be on the papers. Speaking was a very similar format to last semester and basically if you knew the texts to revise for the listening part, chances are you'd get one of them to read out for speaking. Then answer some basic questions. So, in a nutshell, the teachers made sure we could at least all *pass* the exams, if not do well. A pass here is 60 I think, because its a raw mark out of 100, rather than the odd scale system we have back in the UK (where a pass is 40, but IMHO if you're hovering there you shouldnt be wasting 3k a year on tuition). I missed the reading class where the teacher went through the opening questions, and I only halfheartedly prepared for the grammar exam's essay question, but at least I did them pretty much off my own bat, and without any help.

Here's the REALLY bad bit - despite the teachers' "assistance", the other members of my class (bar one, my friend Tanya) STILL felt the need to cheat! In the grammar exam they were whispering to each other, or had their books, or in the case of Gulaga (the class retard) just plain shouting out. Did the invigilators do anything? Did they fuck ... see, the uni desperately wants to hold onto foreign investment and it will do this to the point of ignoring the behaviour and caliber of the foreign students and making sure they can pass and pass well in order to look good on paper. Twats. Listening wasn't much better, Gulaga managed to be quiet all through the exam and then as soon as it was over, rather than sitting still and waiting for scripts to be collected, he and others got up and ran round trying to look at other peoples' answers (the listening exam was PISS EASY, not just because we knew what texts to revise but because on the tape the actors spoke at snail's pace - so to see people trying to cheat answers was more than sad, it was just tragic). Reading, well, Tanya and I didnt know any of the first answers because we missed that class, so we finished reasonably quickly and handed in our papers. The teacher was upset ("You've got some wrong") but really what did she expect, it's a fucking EXAM. I thought she was a good teacher all year but seeing her standing there in a class full of blatantly cheating people (dictionaries, books, notes, etc) and just saying "Please don't use your books" made me lose all respect for her.

I know I passed Listening, Speaking and Grammar (ha, the grammar teacher apparently felt I did a bit badly and gave me more points for attendance, which is funny because my attendance has been shit ... that's another thing, there's no anonymity at all, which is a bit stupid), but I havent got my results for Reading yet. Even if I did badly, at least I did it without cheating, that's the point of an exam ... but what do you expect from a country where people routinely buy their qualifications (high school papers, degree certificates, having someone else sit your driving theory exam, etc) and don't mind talking about it?