One third over, faster than I thought

One third of my studies is over and it was so quick and intense that it is now hard for me to realize the academic year is over. And so is one of the three years I will spend in Cambridge. It was one of the fastest years I have ever lived, mostly because there was always something to do and something to study.

The third term was quite different from the previous two. Two reasons:

Firstly, it was the most beautiful term concerning the weather. When I arrived in Cambridge at the beginning of the term, the spring was already playing in the Cambridge gardens and was revealing the virtue of the gardeners who have been taking care of the trees and flowers. Their skill is amazing – there is always something in blossom in the parks and gardens throughout the whole year. It started with daffodils in King's, then went on with tulips in Clare's and in our college's gardens, and then cherry-trees in Selwyn's, etc.

Also, the sun has finally showed itself and made walking around Cambridge in less than four layers of clothing possible. Naturally, Brits, who lack the sense for temperature or at least sense it differently than continental Europeans, were going out in T-shirts and shorts. So I assume it was quite warm and pleasant weather, at least according to Englishmen.

Secondly, this term was the exam term. That means, the lectures were on only for four weeks, then we had one week to revise and then came the exams. In the subject I take (computer science) there were only written exams, hence I didn't have any oral exams as it is usual in the Czech Republic. Each exam took three hours. I did two computer science exams, two maths exams and one physics exam.

As I mentioned in my earlier blogs, University of Cambridge is very traditional and conservative and so was the exam. All the invigilators (people keeping an eye on the exam)  were dressed in gowns and were walking slowly and open-eared around the exam hall. The exam hall was packed with long rows of tables where the students were sitting. Approximately one minute before the beginning of the exam, one of the invigilators read the instructions, asked if there are any questions and then said the well known phrase: “The examination may now begin”. Then the madness begins – people are turning pages, reading the questions and you know that the three upcoming hours will be damn fast. And then, after you leave the exam hall, you are unable to do any more thinking that day and you are unable to write a single more letter because of pain in your arm.

There is one interesting thing about the exams in Cambridge – it is almost impossible to get the full score. The average percentage achieved in Cambridge exams is around 55%.There are two reasons – you are in a big time pressure and the exercises are usually quite hard and challenging. Hopefully, we have been prepared for this by our tutors and supervisors, so I wasn't depressed that I didn't manage to do all the exercises, as I was used to when I was in the high school.

The great thing about the exams is the possibility to choose the exercises one wants to do. We had four sections in the computer science exam, with two exercises each from which we had to choose one exercise plus one another from arbitrary section. In the other computer science exam we had again four sections with two exercises each and one section with three exercises. We had to choose one exercise from each of the first four sections and two from the fifth section. In maths and physics exam we had part A, from which we had to do all the exercises and then there were other parts (sections) from which one exercise had to be chosen.

I enjoyed the exams in a way – there were some really neat exercises which were fun to solve. But still, I am glad that the exams are over and I can enjoy my holiday. Hopefully I will be enjoying it even after I get my results on 1st of July.

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