What the hell was going on at the RDS exams yesterday?

maireadmarie

Since a close relative of mine was there too, I've taken it on myself to simply ring UCD Examinations Office and express my concern. The official I was talking to took my comments on board and is to get back to me.

Chinafoot

maireadmarie wrote:

The official I was talking to took my comments on board and is to get back to me.

Yea...um....good luck with that one.

panda100

inverted_world wrote:

For once, I'm actually glad that my exams are on in Blackrock. I have still been using earplugs though because I'm very easily distracted.
.

Im just wondering is there anysort of protocol for which exams are in Blackrock?Seems to me like us meds are always quite lucky and our exams are always out in blackrock.I had a repeat exam there last week and it seemed to be all health science students.
Does this mean that final years have to sit exmas in the rds?Yuk couldnt imagine anything worse. Its far to noisy in there!

dajaffa

panda100 wrote:

Im just wondering is there anysort of protocol for which exams are in Blackrock?Seems to me like us meds are always quite lucky and our exams are always out in blackrock.I had a repeat exam there last week and it seemed to be all health science students.
Does this mean that final years have to sit exmas in the rds?Yuk couldnt imagine anything worse. Its far to noisy in there!

I think as a general rule of thumb all the exams held in Blackrock are non-modular ones. That is not to be confused with all non-modular exams being held there, which I'm pretty sure isn't the case.

snickerpuss

I've had nearly all my exams in blackrock. All the Irish ones and 1 of the 3 art history. Its fairly empty at night in the exam hall its usually just us and does seem to be mostly final years.
(I'm non-modular of course) (Though i still take each 'module' exam individually now like I was modularised) (God knows)

inverted_world

panda100 wrote:

Im just wondering is there anysort of protocol for which exams are in Blackrock?Seems to me like us meds are always quite lucky and our exams are always out in blackrock.I had a repeat exam there last week and it seemed to be all health science students.
Does this mean that final years have to sit exmas in the rds?Yuk couldnt imagine anything worse. Its far to noisy in there!

No, I'm final year and all of my exams are in Blackrock this year except one (and that's on campus) I was cursing this at first because it takes a lot longer to get there than the RDS, but it does seem to be quieter and, because it's smaller, there aren't a load of different exams on at the same time so it's nowhere near as daunting.

Most of my English papers are still three hours long, so it's easier to hold them in Blackrock than to have the huge distraction of everyone leaving the RDS hall after two hours.

beanyb

I had three of my exams in the RDS and the other 3 in Blackrock. The only method there seems to be to that is the ones in Blackrock are all this week, and the others were before.

It was still badly organised though. There was only about 150 people in the hall, and half of us had 2 hour exams and the other half were 3 hours. I felt really bad for the 3 hour people, they were obviously pissed off. They could have at least sat them over on the far side of the hall instead of right beside us, to limit the disturbance.

Vainglory

I had an exam in the Memorial Hall in Blackrock - there were three groups of people taking three separate exams in it at the same time- Irish Folklore, Philosophy of Mind, and some Engineering exam.

Some of the Philosophy of Mind people only had a one hour exam (so got up and left after an hour), then the rest of us plus Irish Folklore had a two hour exam (so again got up and left, creating noise, after two hours). I felt very sorry for the engineers who had a three hour exam and were thus interrupted twice.

Also - the invigilator guy was like "Can you be as quiet as possible leaving, as it is very inconsiderate to everyone else". Funny, I thought it was actually inconsiderate of UCD to schedule those exams for the same room in the first place, but no matter...

Duffman

To be honest the advantage of the extra time they gave us by far outweighed any distraction caused by the music,

Paul Tergat

Duffman wrote:

To be honest the advantage of the extra time they gave us by far outweighed any distraction caused by the music,

That's totally your own opinion though. if someone cant concentrate well with the noise it makes no difference if they give ya another 15 mins with the noise still there, IMO

dajaffa

Duffman wrote:

To be honest the advantage of the extra time they gave us by far outweighed any distraction caused by the music,

Ah c'mon, it depends on the person. Like I know for me irritating noises make it practically impossible to get down to work, but don't bother me mid-flow, wheras some people wouldn't be bothered at all by noise.

I think its perfectly fair if someone feels that of they felt this noise had a negative effect on their exam that they send in an extenuating circumstance form. Happy days if it didn't bother most people too much, it affects everyone differently.

FionnMatthew

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

No the list isnt exhaustive, but they are examples of individual gripes that effect an individuals performance, as would your example of a personal timetable being extremely harsh. ...I think that makes things very clear actually. I also think the phrase "personal circumstances" reaffirms my belief that this policy isnt appropriate for dealing with group problems.

This isn't a group problem. Whether or not noise experienced by a group of people affected any individual's exam performance is an individual matter. If any individual person, as a member of the group of people doing exams at that time, felt that, personally, their exams were unduly affected by the noise, it is their prerogative, each individually, to apply for extenuating circumstances.

There was a loud noise which effected everyone sitting the exam doesnt seem like it fits the above criteria.

1) There is no evidence that everyone present felt that the noise affected each of them in the same way, or to the same degree.
2) Even if it did affect everyone, that entails that each individual person felt that the exams were affecting their personal performance. Hence, not only does the circumstance fit the criteria, but it fits it as many times as there are students affected.

Appealing to the decency of the lecturer by petition or through your class rep, which I know from personal experience can work.

It is essentially "appealing to the decency of" the system to fill out an EC form, and it has the advantage over what you've suggested in being an official line of complaint which manifests itself in writing, and to more people than just the lecturer concerned. An EC form can be cited as an official document by the lecturer when complaining about the exam hall noise, because as an official document, it's one UCD can recognise. In the case where there is some dispute over the matter, there is documentary evidence in several places, and nobody can say "you didn't apply in the correct way, and it's too late now."

When is sneering ever warranted?

Are you
a) suggesting that you were not sneering, or
b) suggesting that you may have been sneering, but that you need no justification to do so?

Stabshauptmann

breadmonkey wrote:

Yes, they did it on purpose just to aggrovate students.

From what I heard (and this is entirely heresay), there was a big office "fun day" type thing in the Old Belvedere rugby grounds.

That is what happened alright. Was dropping in my EC form and asked was the above covered by the policy.
I was told the issue is going to be brought to the exam boards attention due to student complaints to the exams office and to the lecturers.

Though the exams office arent to fault.
Apparently UCD does have an agreement with the RDS as to what type of things the RDS can book at the same time as exams.
But the RDS doesnt own the belvo grounds.
They did however ask them to keep the noise down all the same.

Hope thats of comfort sylvesterallein and others who sat an exam on the 25th

Stabshauptmann

FionnMatthew wrote:

This isn't a group problem...

The exams office is treating it as one. Our opinions might vary, but I do think its theirs that matters.

Though you are arguing the point quite well.

It is essentially "appealing to the decency of" the system to fill out an EC form, and it has the advantage over what you've suggested in being an official line of complaint which manifests itself in writing

That may be, but the problem has been resolved through the channels I suggested, though thats not to say those who utilised those channels were ever aware of boards or anything posted on it.

And as an aside complaining to your lecturer or the exams office is official, and an email is in writing, as is a petition or letter.

Are you
a) suggesting that you were not sneering, or
b) suggesting that you may have been sneering, but that you need no justification to do so?

No.


Now whether I was right or not, the situation is being dealt with at exam board level, in the manner it has been for me in the past.

Maybe the EC policy could be applied to it as well, but I stand by my suggestion of doing things the tried and tested way.

sylvesterallein

Kaptain Redeye and all who went to the trouble of answering thanks for the input, in recovery right now and feelling a lot better.