If we could take forever to complete our papers...

I wrote a copy of the first draft of this post while I was having my general paper exams. (anyone remember my criticism of the way GP is being taught...?) My general paper exam wasn't too bad, except for the apparent paradox where I criticise GP in the GP exam paper... Not exactly a good sign, but the teacher cannot exactly mark me down just because of that...

Anyway, I was sitting in my seat waiting for my exam to end when I thought about this question: Why do exams have a time limit? I have decided not to visit Cambridge website until after I finish typing the main body of this post so that we can have a fun time guessing the reasons for it...

1. People will take forever to complete their paper
Just imagine if you can have the time to check through you work over and over and over.... and over again until you are super satisfied with it. I think we'll probably see some careful people lingering in the examination venue until probably one week later where they will be finally satisfied with what they have written down on their answer script. We'll probably see a few dozen invigilators needed for each paper since the invigilators need to take shifts just in case some people decides to take 2 days to complete their paper. Then, the invigilators will need to bring tents, sleeping bags...

2. Timetable nightmare
Imagine if some guy had to take an English paper after the Math paper and there is no time limit as to how long the person can take to complete his paper... Hmm, I would imagine that that English paper would be delayed, delayed, rescheduled and rescheduled again before we can finally take the paper. To that end, we'll probably see examination time tables stretch over one year long. Now that's cool, we can take a year off from studying and we just need to take like 8 tests over a period of one year... Excellent!!!

3. Taking over of the exam venue
Yea, quite possible. Imagine if you had an exam venue in some school hall, and the exam decided to drag for about one week. Quite cool actually, but then the rest of the school will be devoid of their assembly since they do not have a proper place to assemble anymore..
Cool, no morning assembly!!
Anyway, that would probably mean an illegal take over of the exam venue by the examination authority in order to facilitate the running of the exam. Quite cool, I would like to see a court case where Cambridge v the schools of Singapore

4. More chance to cheat
Yea, I think this is probable cause like if your exam last over a month, you'll probably find lots of chances during that one month to cheat and not be discovered while you are inside the exam venue. Cause the more time you have the more chances you get when it is possible haha...

5. Increase in amount of questions
Cause there is more time... actually, that could probably mean you have infinite question since the amount of time that you have for the exam is proportional to the amount of question you have. So if we go according to that, as time tends to infinity, question would tend to infinity too...
Oh man... and I thought I had enough of integration tutorial already...

6. Large scale event
Examination suddenly became a very large scale event, cause there is need to purchase tents and sleeping bags for the invigilators, there is also a need to generate infinitely long list of questions for the candidates to do since they have infinite amount of time on which to spend on the question. Then, food also need to be provided as otherwise the candidates would complain that their welfare is not taken care of, so then there will be a cook there to cook food in packet lunches and which is served to their table for them to eat as they do their examination paper...

7. Large scale food poisoning
Well, cause exams take an infinite long amount of time, cooks will need to be called in to cook for the candidates who are taking the exam to eat. Then there is always this possible chance that there is something dirty inside the food and then all the poor candidates would then suffer from food poisoning and then there will be a lot of germs inside the hall as all the candidates start puking the food out or needs to be sent to the hospital...

8. No admittance to sick people at all
I think currently sick people can be admitted since the only MC that Cambridge recognise is that of chicken pox (other then of course, if you are dead). Anyway, if we are going to have infinitely long exams due to the fact that we no longer have time limit, we would probably not be able to let sick candidates come into the venue anymore (which means chicken pox won't be the only MC that is accepted anymore)since they will pass their germs on to everyone inside the enclosed exam venue... This could become a very horrible situation in which everyone falls sick...

9. Raise in examination fees
Yeah, I think there will be an increase since now we need to provide food and all... Yea, means poorer people can ill-afford to take part in an exam then there will be more financial aids needed which could drive some country to become even more poor, or if there is a "no welfare" option...
Hmm... not such a good idea to raise that fee I guess...
But it also explains away the reason why Cambridge needs an examination fee in the first place...

10. People sleep in the examination venue
Think should be quite fun. Imagine looking at your friend sleep for the first time in your life. Quite cool, and then there is always this chance that a couple would sit together during the examination, then when they sleep....
Uhh... and oh yea, it will make the exam even longer cause when you sleep right, you might just happen to drool on your answer script, which means you need to rewrite everything...

Ok, imagine this highly not possible scenario:
You decide to take part in the O levels, so you paid your examination fee. The Cambridge authority informs you that you need to take a year off your schedule in order to complete this paper properly. You went to take the English paper which dragged on for about 3 months since the last person who left the examination venue took three months to check through all this work properly. Each paper that you take lasted for three months as the last person who left the examination venue left it after sitting there for three months. About 3 years later, you finally completed your examination after all the dragginess and so on and so forth...

Well, I can imagine there will be much less graduates from O levels since most people would not have the patience to sit through all these free time waiting for the moment when your next paper would begin...

Ok, this is crap...

Discmon