The perks of exams

We're in the middle of exams at college at the moment.  Well okay, it's only the start of exam week, but I've already have two exams, and have two more left, so it's the middle for me.

I've now done exams at three different institutions: my high school, my undergraduate university, and now Bible college.  The procedure has been different for each of them.  Of the three, college has been by far the best.  Let me tell you why.

We get free lunch at college after our exams.  Yes, that's right.  I'm not one to get very excited about the regular meals of the day (breakfast, lunch and dinner).  I'm more of a morning tea, afternoon tea, dessert kind of girl.  The sugary things are the exciting foods.  But who would say no to a free lunch, right?

During term time all the students have lunch together, second and third year at 12 o'clock and first and fourth years at 1 o'clock (because they can't fit us all in the dining room together).  But we thought we were pushing our luck to get lunch during exams.  We didn't get lunch during research week or study week (they call it Stu-Vac here).  But there were rumours of sandwiches for those who finished exams at 1pm.

Our first exam on Friday last week finished at 12pm and we hung around for a bit, not sure if we were allowed to go in for the reso's (residentials, those who live on college campus) lunch at 12:30.  But we sent someone to the office to find out, and lo and behold, hooray!  We were allowed to have lunch!  (and it was better than sandwiches).

Our exam today finished at 1pm so we thought we would get sandwiches, but surprise again!  The kitchen staff had extended lunch time so that we could have regular lunch (again, not sandwiches, but a hot meal!). 

Anyway, enough about food.  There are a few other nice things about doing exams at college.

The lecturers trust us.  There's none of this fancy procedure to leave the room and go to the toilet, like handing in your student card and getting a pass.  We could talk in the exam room before the exam started and after it finished.  None of this silence as soon as you enter the exam room (which was never completely complied with anyway).  Once the time finished we were asked to finish writing the sentence we were on, and were allowed to use this 'pack up time' to staple our answers together, and label and number our pages.

But I think one of the best things about exams at Bible college is that the lecturer prays for us before we begin the exam.  While we may have prayed quietly to ourselves before other exams, it was wonderful for the one who taught us and who would assess us, prayed that beyond exam performance and grades we would know God and his word better.  After all, that's why we're here and it has been helpful to remember that as we've prepared for exams.