Exams

Coming up on Day 9 of 10 for exams. Serious marathon test-taking over here.
Physical Science happened while I was in Windhoek, and I'm kind of glad
about that...because it's chaos on your exam day, as I experienced with
Math.
I was able to get the exams ahead of time and proof them. Oh me oh my.
Errors left and right on the tests, AND on the keys. And I'm not talking
about little typos...there were plenty of those that I didn't bother trying
to correct. No, I mean, here's the diagram, and the 3 QUESTIONS to
accompany said diagram are not there. Or, find angle X, but X is not
marked. So I ran around like a mad woman trying to write the corrections on
the board in each of the classrooms. And made sure to distribute all the
calculators and pencils I had amongst my grade 10's. After all that, they
were just flat out hard tests. Sigh.
Other things working against the learners are the sporadic time
tables...some of the teachers don't exactly stick to the schedule. And as
far as I can tell, in some classes, if the majority of the learners are done
with the exam (or more to the point, have given up), the invigilator
releases everyone. Um, photocopying...sometimes there aren't enough exam
papers, sometimes various pages are missing or were stapled in the incorrect
order.
I've been bringing skittles to the classes I invigilate for...figure the
sugar boost might help them just a teeny bit. Plus I think I might be
getting a cavity from all the sugar...so it's a win-win really :-)
I am done marking the science exams and the grade 10's. I'll start on grade
9's tomorrow. I'll post my highs/lows and averages in a few days. But let
me warn you, it's DEpressing.
I find myself wondering if I've done more harm than good sometimes....like
did I spend too much time on a topic that was too hard that I should've let
go? Should I have started giving them actual exam problems weeks and weeks
ago? It's really easy to second guess yourself around this time, and I know
that, but I can't help it, obviously.