First Exam

Chances are most of you reading this have taken all or most of your classes in a traditional setting, i.e. a classroom.  Aside from the obvious differences to on-line classes I would like to introduce you to another one: taking a timed exam on-line.

This was a new one for me. Although it has been several years since I’ve taken an exam at all, every exam I have taken up to now has been in a classroom of some sort with someone sitting at the front of the room to keep us all from talking, cheating, chewing gum or whatever, with the doors closed to keep unwanted people and noise out. I thought getting to take an exam from the comfort of my home would somehow be easier. It was more like an episode of Samantha Who: kind of nutty and surreal.

Monday morning I packed my daughter off to school and came home to take my Economics exam. I was nervous; I am a biologist and this is the first Econ class I have ever taken. Although I had studied I really wasn’t sure what to expect. So, I had picked a time to take the exam when everyone would be out of the house. We were given 90 minutes to complete it and would not be able to submit our test if we missed that 90 minute cut off (there is an internal timer to the program). No keeping on writing after the monitor tells you to put your pencils down on this one.

I grabbed some water and a snack and sat down at my desk.  AHHH! A house oozing with peace and quiet! Everything seemed to be going OK until about 30 minutes into it. That’s when the construction started on one of the houses next door. At about 45 minutes into the exam the 2 yappie big-dog-wanna-be’s on the other side of us started in. YAP! YAP! YAP! YAP! YAP! You know the type (There are a lot of things I could say here about small dogs that would be highly inappropriate and would be sure to piss some people off but most of you know exactly what I’m thinking anyway). Ten minutes later my doorbell rings and I am starting to be sure I’ve pissed someone off. My dog starts in (he is what’s called a REAL dog), so big dog barking in my stupid echo-ey house now added to the yapping and sawing from next door and someone who keeps ringing the door bell. Three times to be exact before I finally gave up trying to pretend none of this was happening at the exact time I was trying to take my first exam. First TIMED exam.

I could go into the silly drama that then unfolded but the point is that life happened all over my exam. Turns out I did OK. Not as well as I would have liked but at least I didn’t totally blow it (nor did I bust a gasket, which, with the yappers next door continuing their saga for the next six hours I certainly could have). In the future I may just head to the local coffee joint where they have free internet. I would at least be assured of a great latte and no doorbells or yappy dogs.