Exam papers

2008-04-24--Exam Plans
It’s the end of April, and the students have sat the exam papers for the modules that I am involved with. We’re working through the statistics and the scores, learning what worked and what didn’t, and the marks from all the papers will be pulled together and presented to the students sometime in the near future.
Already I’ve started work on next year’s exam papers. In fact, I’d started before the students had even sat this year’s exams. The time and organisation required to write, develop and edit new questions with the people that give the lectures, and then to form them into exam papers of the right standard, and then edit, edit, edit and edit some more is taking longer and longer each year. I’m trying to avoid any Forth Bridge references because it feels worse than that. There’s something very permanent about an exam paper. It’s not something you can just paint over again when the last coat starts to crack.

Cast off

I know, no blogging for a week. We’re in exam season at the moment: the first years sat some exams a couple of weeks ago and the second years are in the middle of them right now. It has been very busy and rather taxing here for a couple of weeks requiring much work and tempered blogging. Yes, tempered is definitely the right word, using all of its meanings (even the heating and cooling one).
That aside, Jack had the cast on his arm sawn off yesterday. He was very brave, even though he didn’t really want the nurse to use the saw. The nurse was very good, and Jack was much happier once the cast was off. He kept it and took it home.
2008-04-22--Cast Off
The registrar said that his arm should get stronger over the next couple of weeks.

Third cast

2008-04-15--Bye Plaster Cast
Bye, bye cast!
2008-04-15--Sawing Cast Off
Buzzzzzzzzzz.
2008-04-15--New Blue Cast
Uh-oh, the doctor says Jack should wear a cast for another week. He likes the blue, but was bored to tears hanging around for hours for it, and doesn’t look forward to doing it all again next week.