Impressions on my exams: second and last part

As I promised, here follows the rest of my glimpse on my January exams.

My third exam was Grammaire normative néerlandaise, that is to say an exam on the whole book De regels van het Nederlands that we had been working on for a year and a half. This exam took place on Saturday 12 January, on the really same day as the first year students. (In fact, since I was in charge of establishing the timetables for the exams, I thought it would be more convenient for Mrs Hendrix to come just once for both years. Moreover, it was most suitable for us as to the sequence and spacing of of exams.) Second-year students were asked to enter the lecture room in the first place — one of the few advantages of being older — and then the first-year students. Once everyone was seated, we could stard. First, there was a series of fill-in questions that were quite easy, even if I had second thoughts about it after the exam. Second, twenty MCQs, some of which were written in a sadistic manner. I was confident about 75% of the answers, though. After the exam, while I was discussing my answers with fellow students, I realized that I had made big mistakes, but not too much. On the whole, I thought I would get 15.

As a special treat, Mrs Hendrix told me via e-mail that I got 16/20 for this exam. Quite rejoicing!

Two days and a half later (or three, for some people who had chosen to take the exam on Wednesday), it was time to go and see Mrs Leijnse to be tested orally on the course Histoire de la littérature néerlandaise II. Like in June, I was wearing my black suit, with a black shirt and a black tie. Just two students preceeded me that day, but there was already a ten-minute delay… Anyway, the moment finally came when I received three sheets with a question each of them. I went to the English literature seminar in order to write down the outline of the answer I would give once I would be in front of her. Normally, I should have had just 20 minutes to prepare that, but since Anne-Sophie (who was just before me) was apparently talking and talking, in the end I got more than 25 minutes — which allowed me to write detailed answers, and even to get bored because I didn't know what to write.

Mrs Leijnse eventually came to ask me to go to her office. I sat down and I started answering my questions:

1. [On the basis of a fragment from the epistolary novel Julia by Reijnvis Feith] Who wrote this text? What are the features? To which kind of writings does this belong?
   
2. [On the basis of a sheet with three poems by Van Schaick] Who wrote those poems? Who influenced him? What are the features of his style and the genre of poetry he wrote? What does it tell us about colonialism?
   
3. [On the basis of a poem by Guido Gezelle] Who wrote this poem? What are the characteristics of this poem? // Make a short survey of the "taalkwestie" in Belgium at the beginning of the 19th century.
   

I answered all the questions, making parallels with the other works I knew, their characteristics, the stories, the historical events, and so on. On the whole, I thought I did that exam very well. In fact, I had a better feeling about it than last year: when I took the exam, I was totally exhausted due to the fact that I had been studying philosophy for a week, and that after that I hadn't slept much, resulting in a poor pronunciation… But still, my answers were good, for I got 18 that time. And I also got 18 this time.

The last exam was a written one. It was to last for 5 hours! In fact, it was a twofold exam, the first part being a one-hour closed book exam on Charles Barber's book The History of the English language (very interesting by the way) which we were assigned to read and understand thouroughly in order to answer relatively short questions about it. (We had received a sheet with a list of questions, some of which would be asked at the exam, in order to have guidelines in our reading.) The second part was a four-hour open book exam on Pr. Vandelanotte's course notes about clause complex vs. clause simplex, STR (speech or thought representation, his area of expertise and PhD thesis subject – or I should say: "free indirect speech or thought representation"), and verbal processes.

I had to study the course in less than three days, which was quite a kerfuffle. Understanding the theory about chapters 1 and 3 was quite easy, since I had already go the idea behind the theory during the lectures. But as to chapter 2, I have to admit that I had hardly understood anything when Pr. Vandelanotte discussed it in class. At that time, I was more concerned about the fact that one can be so fascinated by such an abstract matter… But I guess it must be like that for any academic study. (You tell me, Professor.)

I worked very hard on that chapter and I managed to get the point of the four false assumptions about STR, even though I had difficulty finding good criteria to make the difference between free indirect speech (FIST) and distancing indirect speech (DIST). Basically, it had something to do with the degree of intervention of the narrator and the use of pronouns, but I didn't know how I'd explain that on my exam sheets… But since it was an open-book exam, I felt a little bit more comfortable and confident.

The exam took place and the first part was really easy: I had read the book two times in detail, making notes and studying them. After that, we had one hour for lunch (a good sandwich filled with a thick layer of "filet américain" is the best way to feed me in such circumstances). After that, we started what appeared to me to be the most difficult exam of my life. It would be too long to tell everything in detail, so I give you now just a couple of impressions. The first question was outrageously more simple than I thought: there were many clauses simplex (hence no need for analysis) and the few in the category "clause complex" were not as complicated as in the syllabus, except for one that was outrageously difficult, with a lot of subordinated clauses and everything. I read the second question, but my brain sent me a signal like those "ERROR 404" messages… I moved on to the last question. I filled boxes with the appropriate verbal processes and participants plus circumstances (if any) quite quickly, then I wrote a short text about the conclusions I could draw from such an analysis of verbal processes. That done, I had about two hours left to answer the second question, consisting in making the difference between types of reported speech in two given excerpts. However, I can't tell you a lot, for it's like a giant black hole in my memory. On the moment, I managed to fetch several arguments in the syllabus in favour of my analysis, but I don't know how I managed to do it right…

I was quite disappointed after my exam: I felt that my answers weren't really good and lacked precision… Nevertheless, I got 18 out of 20 for this exam. And I don't know how such a thing is possible. I'm looking forward to seeing my exam!



In conclusion, these two weeks (and a half) of exams was really exhausting, but my efforts were rewarded. Let's hope I can still work like that in June!