EXAMINATION CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 87, 9 October 1935, Page 10

EXAMINATION CONDITIONS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —As has been pointed out in your columns by "Student," the existing state of affairs in Wellington with regard to examinations conducted by the N.Z. University is far from satisfactory. Time-tables have just been issued, and the locality for the Wellington examinations is the same as in the last few years Wellington is the only one of the four university college centres that does not use the college building for conducting the examinations. While it is probably more convenient to have all examinees herded together in sections, as is the practice at the Winter' Show building, there are many disadvantages from the student's viewpoint.

First, that, of temperature. The sun beats down on the iron roof of the Winter Show building throughout the whole day, and the heat, particularly in the afternoon, is almost unbearable. Students—the .wiser of the men with their coats, vests, and collars discarded—perspire freely, force their rebelling bodies and minds to write down answers to th 3 questions before them, and endeavour as test they can to reap I some harvest from the guineas they have sown in the ever-hungry soil that is known as the New Zealand University.

Secondly, on the few occasions when it is cold at this time of the year, the frosty atmosphere circulates throughout the wide open space' where the examinees sit. I remember last year, towards the end of a stifling afternoon, when the best of a bad paper was being made, a ,shunderstorm came on, and the reverberations of hailstones on the iron roof resembled the quickfiring of innumerable machine-guns. In the third place, the huge floor space is divided by flimsy partitions into about six sections. No two examinations start at the same time, and for the first ten minutes of a paper, students have to listen to the ■ voices of sub-supervisors in other sections telling examinees what they may and may not do. Towards the end of the paper, it is not very heartening to be told by six different people from different parts of the area that "you have fifteen minutes more." '

Surely it is time that the N.Z. University had a little more regard for the conditions under which it conducts examinations. Even if Victoria Col-| lege cannot hold all the examinees, it| at least would take all the arts and science candidates, and another suitable hall could be found for the remaining examinees. I understand this practice is carried put at Christchurch.! At all events, it. is time something was done about the matter.—l am, etc., STUDENT ALSO.