On Exams

I've had a lot of people asking what exams at St. Andrews are like. Well, they are hard; extremely rigorous and upwards of three hours long. I wrote 17 pages in my Jane Austen exam, and the blue books here are about two times the size of UNC's. You are not allowed to have anything at your desk except two pens and your matriculation card. I sat my Austen exam in the Old Union; basically a massively ornate lecture hall with floor-to-ceiling windows and neat rows of seats. You are not allowed to go to the bathroom without a proctor, and everyone sits at their bolted-down desk pulling out fistfulls of hair and looking about with faces of abject horror. It really is very stressful.

Because of the way classes are structured at St. Andrews the exams are generally worth around 40-60 percent of the final grade. I only have three other grades in my Austen class (two papers and a presentation), so needless to say exams are kind of a big deal.

But it's nothing I haven't had before. Exams were like this at Asheville School. Last night I felt that old stirring of panic I used to feel walking into a Doc Schmidt US History AP final. I haven't felt that for a long, long time (James Otis! Writs of Assistance!), and frankly, I am glad to revisit the feeling because it means I am finally using my brain to its full capacity after three years of hoop-jumping at UNC.

So, for all of my Asheville School readers, let's go back in time:

I remember in Mr. Hamilton's World History class he would always give the tests at the end of the day, because he wanted to see what you knew, now how fast you could write. After one of those tests it occurred to me that I had just written a 58 page essay. He was also the only teacher I ever had that would ask exam questions like "Explain the progression of history from Babylonian to the Cold War. Be Specific."

The other thing about Mr. Hamilton that always comes to mind was that he would read while we wrote. But he would read something to the tune of ten pages a minute. There was always a lot of speculation about whether he was really reading of looking at magazines tucked behind other books. Wright finally put him to the test when right before we began an exam he stood up and told Hamilton that he did not believe that he was actually reading, gave Hamilton some book dealing with subversive pop culture (one that Wright knew he had not read, Maddona - the material girl or something similar) and told him to read it during the exam and he would be tested on his retention after we were done. Hamilton read it, 300+ pages, and went back the book he had brought for himself. Two hours later Wright produce a sheet of question he had prepared in advance and Hamilton knew all the answers. Dates, relationships, discography, movies, names of pets, all of it.

That was a moment for me. I knew that I was being instructed by people who were passionate about knowledge. It is one of those little things that you never forget, and always appreciate.