College student exams
Posted: 06 Oct 2017, 20:18
When I was a university student I had a few experiences of seeing fellow students in three-hour end-of-term exams who were obviously desperate to pee and having trouble hanging on until the end of the exam. In theory they could put their hand up and ask an invigilator to escort them to the toilet making sure that they had no access to notes or books after seeing the exam paper - except, for some reason, that no-one would be allowed to leave "during the first half hour or the final ten minutes" of the exam. But outside that period I think most of the male students, if they had got caught short, would either sacrifice their exam credits and leave the exam early or they would hang on grimly to the end. It was just too embarrassing to have to ask to be escorted out. (I thought the same. On the one occasion when I remember being desperate myself during a three hour exam, I just held on and only just made it to the end with dry pants.)
As mentioned, I saw various desperate guys squirming on their seats near me during those exams. But one incident particularly sticks in my memory. And I'll describe this one now.
I remember that for this exam we were all in the Great Hall, with seating for several hundred students, mixed in with other students taking all sorts of different exams. Some of the exams were 3 hours, others just 2 hours, so after two hours a large group would be leaving quietly while the rest of us carried on. We were seated at random by drawing seat numbers from a bucket at the door to reduce the chances of cheating.
I got seated at my random spot, and a young male student was assigned the seat to my right. He was wearing an open-neck white shirt and stone grey jeans which were pretty trendy at that time. Hundreds of others were also all sitting down, the invigilators were on the podium preparing to start the proceedings, and at this point I caught the guy's eye for just a moment. It's funny, we had never met or anything, but he was looking straight at me, and I just got the strong impression that he was thinking "Oh, no..." as if a very awkward thought had entered his mind and he was wondering what to do. And, despite not having any serious evidence to think this, I thought: has he suddenly realised he needs a pee, and is he wondering if he is allowed to dash back out of the hall before the exam starts?
Well, my strange hunch turned out to be absolutely true. During the subsequent one hour and 45 minutes I was treated to a progressively more intense display of desperation from this guy. He was clearly doing the type of exam where you have to write a lot, essays I guess, and while writing he was not sitting still at all. It started in earnest after maybe a half hour, and from this point he was scissoring his legs - just slowly, but intensely, clearly straining to hold on while he wrote. And sometimes he'd emit an audible sigh and then cross his legs, only to uncross them and continue with the scissoring shortly afterwards. I couldn't concentrate on my own exam at all! What I didn't know, and still don't, was whether he was taking a 2-hour exam or a 3-hour one. What I did know at the time was that if it was a 2-hour exam he probably wouldn't last to the end, and if it was 3 hours he certainly wouldn't.
Well, the squirming and sighing became more and more pronounced as time went on. And then, after one hour and 45 minutes, he abruptly stopped writing, stood up, and made a loud noise with his metal pen case, audible throughout the hall, as he frantically gathered up his papers and other things and rushed out to hand in his exam and leave. I can't be sure, but I think he had actually started to pee himself, judging by the sheer suddenness of his exit and the state he had been in beforehand.
He was almost too late leaving the hall for another reason. A few minutes later an invigilator on the podium announced that there were 10 minutes to go before the end for those taking 2 hour exams, and therefore no-one could leave the hall during those 10 minutes. So if this guy had not left when he had, he could have been trapped in his seat for 10 more minutes at a point when he clearly could not hold on any longer.
As mentioned, I saw various desperate guys squirming on their seats near me during those exams. But one incident particularly sticks in my memory. And I'll describe this one now.
I remember that for this exam we were all in the Great Hall, with seating for several hundred students, mixed in with other students taking all sorts of different exams. Some of the exams were 3 hours, others just 2 hours, so after two hours a large group would be leaving quietly while the rest of us carried on. We were seated at random by drawing seat numbers from a bucket at the door to reduce the chances of cheating.
I got seated at my random spot, and a young male student was assigned the seat to my right. He was wearing an open-neck white shirt and stone grey jeans which were pretty trendy at that time. Hundreds of others were also all sitting down, the invigilators were on the podium preparing to start the proceedings, and at this point I caught the guy's eye for just a moment. It's funny, we had never met or anything, but he was looking straight at me, and I just got the strong impression that he was thinking "Oh, no..." as if a very awkward thought had entered his mind and he was wondering what to do. And, despite not having any serious evidence to think this, I thought: has he suddenly realised he needs a pee, and is he wondering if he is allowed to dash back out of the hall before the exam starts?
Well, my strange hunch turned out to be absolutely true. During the subsequent one hour and 45 minutes I was treated to a progressively more intense display of desperation from this guy. He was clearly doing the type of exam where you have to write a lot, essays I guess, and while writing he was not sitting still at all. It started in earnest after maybe a half hour, and from this point he was scissoring his legs - just slowly, but intensely, clearly straining to hold on while he wrote. And sometimes he'd emit an audible sigh and then cross his legs, only to uncross them and continue with the scissoring shortly afterwards. I couldn't concentrate on my own exam at all! What I didn't know, and still don't, was whether he was taking a 2-hour exam or a 3-hour one. What I did know at the time was that if it was a 2-hour exam he probably wouldn't last to the end, and if it was 3 hours he certainly wouldn't.
Well, the squirming and sighing became more and more pronounced as time went on. And then, after one hour and 45 minutes, he abruptly stopped writing, stood up, and made a loud noise with his metal pen case, audible throughout the hall, as he frantically gathered up his papers and other things and rushed out to hand in his exam and leave. I can't be sure, but I think he had actually started to pee himself, judging by the sheer suddenness of his exit and the state he had been in beforehand.
He was almost too late leaving the hall for another reason. A few minutes later an invigilator on the podium announced that there were 10 minutes to go before the end for those taking 2 hour exams, and therefore no-one could leave the hall during those 10 minutes. So if this guy had not left when he had, he could have been trapped in his seat for 10 more minutes at a point when he clearly could not hold on any longer.