The Chamber of Secrets, or Heregoesnothin

The hall is quite large. It is around the size of my old school hall, but this time it's filled with tables and chairs. Each table has a label with numbers depicting the index numbers of different students. The labels have different numbers on them, so it means that students do not sit at the same tables for all exams: For example, students not taking biology will not be in the examination hall, so to fill up the empty spaces... U get the drift.

There are around 500 students crammed in the hall. The invigilators (the year 3 teachers), around 20 of them, roam the hall in search for students who disobey the solemn rules of the hall. Awaiting for the paper to start is the worst part. We sit there and watch the clock projected on the screen to tick to the starting time of the exam, and as we wait we look around. Everyone else is praying, tapping their feet, scratching their heads, and suddenly, the head invigilator says 'you may begin', and the flurry of papers rustling can be heard as everyone scrambles to start, and finish.

The invigilators are strict. If you forget to tie your papers together (here we use a piece of string to knot our examination papers together), or tie it loosely, they make you stand up. And I can tell you, you standing up with a few hundred other people watching may be a good thing, but not in this circumstance. The teacher speaks to u in soft, dangerous tones, but everyone nearby can still hear. They are strict, and even when they collect your papers there are usually no smiles on their faces. It's not that they are cold, it's probably because of the seriousness of the moment.

Once we are allowed to leave the exam hall, there is no relief; no, not yet. Friday the 15th is the day. Oh yes.

During the exam, we scribble as fast as we can, because the exams here are a race against time, not just a test of the mind. Back home, English papers were finished in half the time allocated. Here, I finish with barely 5 minutes to spare. So to work fast is to work efficiently, and time management is key here, and is more important than back home.

So as we struggle to prepare for this exam, we keep as silent as possible, unwilling to let our prison guards find reason to make us stay forever in the hall.

Heregoesnothin.