Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Taking up from where I left of yesterday, I had a short nap during my 1130am-1250pm break, after having lunch. I heard my alarm but it took me some time to fully wake and get up.

I had been planning to make three different sets of questions for the three classes, but there was not enough time to do that and get ready for my next class, so I just used the same questions again.

In my astronomy exam at 1250pm, first the same student/s who suggested before about photocopying the sample exam brought up a similar thought here. I didn’t heed it because I would have done that before the class if that were what I wanted. For this first test, it was my intention to let them copy the questions first. There would be time for exams later were each student had a copy of the questions.

There were also students who complained that they hadn’t copied all the questions yet after I turned off the overhead projector. One was a girl in the back row that I lent the transparency to, for her to write from directly. Another was a guy from the second to the last row, to whom I said wait while the girl finished copying.

He said it was okay though. Does that mean he was just going to ask the person beside him? That I definitely would not allow. Or would he just be content with submitting his paper with not all the questions answered? I could allow that, but there might be complaints and complications down the road.

When I looked at his paper though, all I could see were answers; no questions. Therefore he didn’t follow instructions, and I found out neither did the two other gentlemen on his right. So rather than have them conferring with their classmates as to the rest of the questions (and maybe some of the answers), I turned on the overhead projector until they finished copying all the questions.

One of the three students also took more than one sheet of the official test paper. This I saw while I went around checking that everyone had his or her own zodiac constellation calendar. He apologized and gave me the remaining pieces, although he did use two as scratch papers and left them crumpled on his desktop afterwards.

I have long since stopped being surprised that students will remake their own calendars instead of using the one first made in class. I have seen some printed out and cut up, even using colored ink.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday is that for the first time ever as far as I can remember, I also asked the students to write on their papers the names of the persons seated on their left and right.

Another deterrent to temptations of sharing answers.
In the third (230pm) class, I counted out what I thought was an exact number of test papers to prevent a recurrence of the hoarding earlier, but somehow they still needed extra sheets. In fact, one girl went to my desk in the middle of the test to get a new sheet.

I had to tell another student that she didn’t need the whole list of constellations, just the zodiac ones, exactly like in the practice test we had. I also had to tell some students to put away their yellow pad that they had brought out.

Also in this class, some of the students who finished first went out, then came back with snacks that they consumed in their seats noisily while others were still taking the test. I had to remind them to tone it down.