When I wrote about my first day at my National Service workplace, it was mostly me complaining about how I was involved in some work that wasn’t suited for my dressing for my first day.
Well I found out today that that my first day experience was a one time thing and rarely occurs. It turns out medical students write almost all their exam in the school’s auditorium, and they only used the other venue(the one we arranged that day) because the auditorium was being used for another exercise at the time of the exam. I got this piece of information today and thought it’d be good to update you guys since I complained about it in your faces about it a few days ago.
Today, we were supervising another exam again by the same level medical students. However this exam was a bit different from the one they wrote two days ago. This one was a practical exam called OSCE exam.
I got in early today for us to setup the exam hall. This setup was relatively easier because the auditorium was clean and dustless compared to the former.
On the front stage of the auditorium, we setup beds and curtains in a manner that the curtains covered beds so that students sitting away will not be able to see what was happening behind the curtains. Kind of like what you see in hospitals when doctors need to examine patients and need privacy.
After preparing this part of the practical test, we brought in tables and arranged two tables in short distances from each other. These tables were labelled as stations and each station had a question paper plastered to one table, and answer sheets on the next. Then we distributed the A4 answer sheets around the stations after arranging the tables.
See the interesting thing about this exam was that instead in most normal exam where they just print their diagrams on the question paper, they had like the real thing(or moulds of it) there. Like this box we grabbed of a sagittal section of the head, and a brain and liver. There were colored pins(red, yellow and green) on the choroid plexus, The pineal gland, cerebral aqueduct and straight sinus. You can see the marking scheme here.
The students came in and were seated one student at each station. Students could spend only a maximum of 5 minutes at each station. At each station, they would pick an answer sheet from one of the tables, respond to the questions plastered on the other table, and move to the next station in 5 minutes. We(invigilators) were positioned 1 invigilator at every station and there were 20 stations! Each station’s questions covered a certain course: for example, my station was an anatomy station.
Unlike in the last exam where we only shared papers and walked around to ensure they weren’t copying, we were marking the scripts for this exam as they were writing. After the 5 minutes allowed at each student per student, the answer sheets were handed to us (invigilators) to be marked before the student proceeds to the next station. I thought it would be stressful, but it was honestly kinda fun.
The exam was written in two badges and each badge used 1 hour 40 minutes( 5 minutes by 20 stations). I marked 25 scripts for the first batch and 25 for the second. The performance for the second batch was generally a lot encouraging than the first and I want to believe the first batch leaked some of their answers to the second. For my station, I marked out of a total of 10 marks, and most of the students in the first batch scored 2,4 and 6, with 2 being the most frequent. The second badge had more of 6s though and even though I had my suspicion, I was glad to see they were doing better.
One thing I liked about today’s invigilation was the food! Man these people know how to treat me. After the first batch was done, we went on a launch break. We were served very nicely and man was I happy:) I hadn’t eaten all day yet and it was past mid day already.
At first, I thought the break wouldn’t last long and so only munched on the sandwich a bit. I was later told the break actually is a bit long so I dived into the main course, and only at the middle of enjoying this Ghana jollof that is better than Nigeria jollof, I saw the exam officer giving the students outside a signal to come in. I had to leave it mid way and only finished it when I got home.
After the exam, we had to arrange the answer sheets according to what course the station covered. My station and the one next to it were the anatomy stations so we added our responded answer sheets together. Then we went round and collected the marking schemes and pens from the invigilators so we can redistribute them during tomorrow’s paper, and the final one on Friday.
Remember my mid way-eaten jollof with a huge chicken, yeah I wasn’t ready to part with it yet so I packed it along side the other goodies I hadn’t touched yet into the box I brought the anatomical molds, took the box back to the exam office and took my food home to enjoy. It was GOOD!
From today until Friday, I love my job:) I’ll save the rants for later.