Lower Main Suite exams - Nagoya

I had an early start on Saturday morning, driving down to Nagoya at dawn. It was a beautiful crisp morning, and not too much traffic. Unfortunately, because of an unannounced room change I could not find the exams - not a promising start.

My mission today was to monitor the performance of the oral examiners - despite the large number of candidates I still had to scurry from room to room so I could catch all of our OEs in action. I'm glad I filled in as much as I could on the checklists before I left - was very hectic! Lunch didn't exist, as the supervisors were not too clever with their packing drill - an annoying situation as there was plenty of potential for a mistake/lost scripts.

The afternoon session was more of the same; I was hoping to check on invigilating as well, but the speaking tests took a bit longer than planned, and the written papers were all done by the time we were done with the speaking tests. I am glad I managed to see all of our OEs in action - some more than others - as it is very important that quality is maintained and that examiners are kept up to par. It is very easy to let bad habits slip into our performance; it is just as important that examiners who are doing a good job are told as much.