Finals

I had my first official final the other day. It took place in the horse racing building because it's huge and there are time clocks everywhere. It was so much more intense than exams at U of I. You aren't allowed to bring back packs in, so you have to put all of your valuables in a clear plastic bag. Then they assign you a seat with a card so that you cannot sit near people you know. You also have to fill out this long sheet with information about yourself and get your identity verified. Once they passed out the exams and said begin, I started to write on the test and a man came up to me and told me that it was just for reading and took it away and gave me a new one. I assumed that he meant that I was just not allowed to write on that section of the test, so after I refilled in all of the name and information bubbles, I started to fill out my scatron. Then another man came up and angrily took that one away from me too. So then I had to fill out a completely new scantron as well, and was then told I couldn't even fill my name in on that either. They do something called "reading time" where you are just supposed to stare at the test and not touch anything, and I clearly did not get this message. They also took everyone's calculators away. You could tell who all of the exchange students were because we were all so confused. Apparently you have to go into a certain building at the university to get your calculator inspected to receive a sticker that confirms that it passes the standards. Even though I can't think of any way that anyone could cheat with the most basic scientific calculator available on the market, we all had to do the problems by hand and then pick up our calculators after the exam in this huge pile of calculators of other kids who didn't know either. I can't even imagine what the process for actually important exams are here.