A bit of a rant

21 May was pre-exam day at our school. The Cambridge exams were rapidly approaching, so we gave the students a practice exam that day so they could experience having the whole thing at once. Actually, I gave them the exam. It was my project and I ended up doing it alone, which wasn't so bad.

 

Here are the levels and number of students:
BEC Preliminary - 1
BEC Vantage - 6
PET - 4
FCE - 7
CAE - 7
(Attendance was low because the pre-exams are optional. A lot more actually took exams)

 

It went pretty well for the most part, but the ending frustrated me. None of the CAE students wanted to do the writing, the excuse being that they didn't feel like it. I tried to convince them to stay, but it didn't work. All the work of preparing that part of it down the drain. Did they think I wanted to be there on my day off giving the exam to them? Trust me, I didn't! I did it because I cared about their education and wanted to help them as much as possible. Lazy sods.

 

In the Eastern European country I lived in before moving to the-country-that-won't-be-named, we had two practice exams before the Cambridge exams and all of my students did every part of them (year after year in many cases), with the only complaint being that they were tired (which was totally understandable).