Broken hand and exams

Connorzee

Alright so i mangled the thumb of my writing hand in a hurling match friday night that i have to get surgery on and what not and my exams are starting this Friday coming. I have a letter saying all this but i was just wondering what the procedure is. I'll obviously inform the exam office first thing Tuesday (monday being a bank holiday), but how does the whole Scribe thing work? Are they marked the same, done somewhere else or what?

ViveLaVie

You'll also have to inform the relevant departments for whatever course you're doing. You should probably email them now so they'll have a written account of the situation to refer to first thing on Tuesday when you ring them. You should be allocated a room to yourself for your exams, with an invigilator and your scribe, who you'll dictate to. The exams will be marked exactly as though you had written them yourself as your injury does not adversely affect your capacity to study or perform well in the exam and even if your injury did influence your result, you wouldn't be marked any better unless you filed an appeal which stated your case (with evidence of same) as to why you deserved a better mark. That would also take months to process and go before the heads of the relevant departments, a further review board and the president of the college.

Connorzee

Thanks for that. I assume the scribe will have some sort of knowledge on the subjects im doing? My worry is with him/her having to draw graphs and models for economics and me describing them. Not being able to write study notes this week is going to be a disaster.

ViveLaVie

I don't have personal experience with a scribe myself, but I assume it would be necessary the scribe had knowledge of the subject. It would be absolutely ridiculous to have someone who couldn't draw the graphs properly. I initially thought you'd have a scribe just for answering questions the traditional way but seeing as you do a subject that requires drawing models etc you could ask for your exam to be deferred until the Autumn. Since it would be for a legitimate medical reason, you wouldn't be capped at 40 percent. Normally the Disability Support Service organise deferrals for students through the Exams Office but seeing as you have a temporary medical issue I'd say you could just apply directly for a deferral to your year head and the exams office yourself? All you'd need is a doctor's cert. Otherwise, if you sit the exam now but you can only study through writing out notes and your hand is affected, then you'd have reason to appeal if your result wasn't in line with your usual results. I wouldn't be able to say if it'd be likely to be successful though. I know three people who had appeals; two were successful and one failed purely because her results up until then hadn't been good enough to compensate.

karbear

the person who would scribe your exam would have filled out a form with the disability support service (they organise scribed exams) stating their areas of study/expertise, so there should be someone who could help out with drawing your graphs (depending on their hours of availability). maybe just be sure to specify this need with the exams office? good luck!