The aftermath of exams

Well finally all supplementary exams are completed and graded, and now I can sit back and reflect on my first semester of assessment.

I don't know how Chinese students compare to western students in attitude when it comes to exams, since i've never assessed western students. The only point of comparision i can make is with myself.

I did end up failing students in both my oral and written subjects, though for my oral subjects I eventually had to pass everyone. That's an unspoken rule here in China with most of the oral classes at chinese universities (and especially lower tier uni's like mine). But even after making the oral supplementary exam ridiculously easy with lame ass topics such as : tell me your favourite thing about western or chinese culture, or introduce yourself, I STILL had a handful of students who could barely express themselves or barely understand simple questions i asked. The best i could do was to tell them that if it was up to me i'd fail them, and a stern warning to pick up their proficiency in their remaining years here at uni, lest they remain jobless after graduation.

I happened to bump into the dean of the english dept after all the supp exams were done, and in the nicest and most indirect way he indicated that he would prefer me to pass all the students first time the next time i give an oral exam. all the while saying he respects my decision and my approach to teaching. He explained that if too many students failed the first exam then central administration would require his department to write a report explaining the failure rate. apparently 10-15% is too high a rate from the usual 0%.
It might look great for the department, but i know many of these students are going to struggle to prove their english if they ever manage to land a job.

For the written supplementary exam I made it exactly the same as the original exam, but with the content changed. I even kept the order of the questions exactly the same as the original, sent out the answers to the original exam, and made myself available for consultation at every oppotunity. 2/10 of the students who took the supplementary still managed to fail, and fail badly! It's like they hadn't even looked at their mistakes over the winter holiday! Something I've noticed about the written exam is that many students do this thing of copying the entire passsage if they don't know what to do for the question, somehow thinking that i can reward part marks for practicing handwriting!
Anyway, before i submitted the supp exam results I had to check with the dean what he wanted me to do about these two students who failed by a long shot. Thankfuly i was given the green light to fail them, and fail them i did without any sympathy. tough love.

There was also the annoying practice of some students begging me to let them pass or review their exam results. Obviously I couldn't change their grades, no matter how pitiful or nice they sounded. I figured it was also a lesson in responsibility for ones actions and accountabiltity, something that is probably lacking a bit more in China compared to the west.

The last thing of interest was how the written supplementary exams were administered. My students were bunched together with students from other subjects in an exam room to do their supp. While there i witnessed one student from another major get caught cheating with a small piece of paper with notes. The monitor only confiscated the bit of paper and exam, and made the student sit there for 2 minutes before returning the exam! seems being caught cheating only results in a time penalty at my uni!

The other thing I noticed was that a student finished and left the exam room BEFORE another 'late arrival' walked in, about 45 minutes into the session. I have a feeling the 'late arrival' will kick ass in his supp score.