For those of us who have gone though with it before, we have sympathy for those kids at school and university now taking exams. For not only do they have to suffer Summer’s high temperatures, its seasonal afflictions such as hay fever, and its other normal distractions and attractions, they also have the excitement of the FIFA World Cup to contend with. Nevertheless, every now and again a stroke of luck comes down like manna from heaven to ensure that everything is all right.
This year it happened to engineering students studying at the renowned Imperial College in London. The London Evening Standard reports that as the engineering students sat down to open their examination papers they found the answers fully written out and stapled to the backs of their papers, along with a full marking scheme. The invigilators twigged that something was wrong after most of the candidates burst out laughing. In the end, it was decided that the answers would be removed and that the students should carry on – the reasoning being that they did not have enough time to memorise the answers.
Comment by David Todd: Something similar happened to this writer in his student days. The late lamented Professor of Aerodynamics at Cranfield, John Stollery CBE, used to set the “Hypersonics” paper for the Master of Science degree course in Astronautics and Space Engineering. However, as this writer sat down to this examination and fearfully turned the page all those years ago, there, in front of him, was the previous year’s paper! Hoorah! Dear old John (who used to read this column) had accidentally reset the same paper again. And for those of us that had previously worked the paper through and developed model answers, in World Cup terms it was “back of the net!”. 🙂
