How Covid has entirely changed my exam work ethic

First of all, apologies to anyone who is reading these blogs for being a bit AWOL – it’s that time of year, as the title of today’s subject suggests…

I’m a finalist, and I don’t need to tell you the amount of pressure and stress that brings – it’s your last chance to make a solid push before you finally graduate and say goodbye to the last 3-4 years of your life (unless you’re like me and planning to do a Masters – #lifehack much?)

However, the traditional approach (including graduation, sad times) has had to be abandoned because of the ongoing pandemic. That raises all sorts of questions about examinations and the like, so I’m going to offer a few thoughts and reflections based on my experiences.

First of all, it should be noted that I have a distinction between culture and language for the French side of my degree. All my cultural modules (stuff like the Left and Trade Unions in France and France and the Orient) have decided to stick with the essay approach they usually do – they’re not year-round modules, so it’s slightly easier. I know some people who have seen a split between essays and presentations, and some still have exams for culture – but for the most part, the department has tried to convert culture to essays alone.

However, when it comes to language, it’s pretty hard to assess that through coursework alone. We have seen coursework introduced to try and take the strain off of us, but exams are very much the status quo – just in a different form.

Let me explain. I have three exams – speaking, translation, and writing. Speaking is just a Teams call, and I’ll have to use the online exam portal for the other two. If you thought that was a big change, brace yourself – these exams are actually open book, which means that although we need to stick as closely as possible to ‘normal’ exam conditions, we can use dictionaries and check grammar. Okay, it has to be within reason; it’s still a timed exam, you need to be realistic about what you’re able to check.

This has been a game-changer though. Where I would spend hours cramming and prepping each day, I’ve found that the new way of doing things has given me a much healthier approach and indeed mindset. I now realise that I don’t need to spend ages on stuff because at the end of the day, I’m good at what I do, and all I need to do when I’m revising is remind myself of that. Spending hours at a time is not as productive as a couple of intense hours a day, and I can’t actually believe it’s taken me as long as it has to realise this about education – because the positive impact has been amazing.

Exam season now feels a lot less intimidating, and I don’t have this all-or-nothing mindset as badly as I would have under normal conditions. I really hope that the university is able to see the positive impact these open book exams can have – it’s less about absorbing information and more about proper technique now.

So my message to those of you with exams at the moment is to really consider the implications these open book exams hold for you. Realise that it’s not going to be as bad as typical settings and think about how that can positively impact your mental health and work ethic. Most importantly, good luck! I’m sure you’re all going to be fine.