The silence persisted for only half an hour after the commencement of the exam. The incessant chatters and giggles of the running guards broke the silence thus disturbing the typical ´exam environment´. [break]
To be honest, I couldn´t stop the words of appreciation popping out in my head for the invigilator of my class and then I found her standing in front of me staring at my answer sheet.
After a while she walked to the seat of a girl behind me and to my astonishment, started whispering all the answers to her. “I´d been so stupid to let her see my answers”, I thought to myself.
I became cautious. I then covered my answer sheet with a rough paper to forbid her from taking a glance at my answers again. But every single time I uncovered my sheet, she appeared in front of me and repeated the same act of ´staring´ again which started driving me crazy.
I found the teacher helping the student throughout the exam. When somehow I managed to keep my answer sheet away from her stare, she said to me, “Have you solved question number 33?” to which I nodded my head saying that I hadn´t.
She then went back to the same student and told her that nobody in the class had solved that question. Voices saying ´A´, ´B´, ´C´ and ´D´ continued to echo in the room. It was not just the invigilator but the other staffs of the college too who´d been coming to the hall to ensure if the student was doing fine.
The deeds of the invigilator got me so infuriated that I felt like smashing her face but I was helpless since I had already submitted my answer sheet. If I took any action against her, she could have done anything to my answer sheet to take revenge and could have shattered my dreams.
I prefer to keep the name of the college and the teacher confidential because I don´t want to defame the whole governing body because of someone´s reckless behavior. It was the first time that I´d seen a teacher help a student to cheat. It seriously didn´t feel good to witness the act of ´teaching and cheating´ going together.
Being a medical aspirant and a responsible citizen of the country, I´d like to see the best of the talented and qualified people as medical professionals.
I, thereby, would like to make an appeal to the responsible authorities who conduct such exams to make rules and strictly implement them in order to bring such incidents to a halt.
The writer is a +2 graduate from St. Xavier´s College, Kathmandu.
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