Marking exams.

Kate:
Do you get extra time in exams, and if so, how do you use it?

Joe Cornfield, student, Mathematical Sciences:
Yeah, I get the extra time in exams but even with the extra time I don’t always finish the exams, but it helps a lot and it lets me check off the questions and I can tick them off as I go past them and look over them again later after I’ve ticked each one...

...because sometimes there’s that one line just hidden in there that I’ve missed completely, not read, or just misread that was a question and would give me ten marks, or whatever, that I haven’t written anything for. So I can just jot something down that gets me one or two of them even if I have ten minutes at the end when I’m checking through.

Annie Evans, student, Archaeology:
I do misunderstand a lot of the questions and then I put my own spin on it and just go off and do my own thing, and then I get 40% for an essay and they all say, "You’ve done a lot of work, it’s very interesting, but you didn’t answer the question". That’s where student support comes in - I take my essays to Christine and she’ll say "No, this isn’t relevant, you haven’t answered the question".

Kate:
So misreading or misinterpreting questions is an issue.

Annie:
Yeah, for me.

Kate:
Do you get extra time in exams?

Annie:
I get 25% extra in exams. That’s really good because normally without the extra time you just have to get in and get out and kind of do what you can do in the time that you’ve got, but with the extra time you can think, "Well I can just sit here reading, I’ve got an extra ten minutes", so that’s great. You can calm down and read the question.