A level exam gothic
• You bring four black ball point pens into the exam room in a clear plastic pencil case. Only one of them works.
• You wait for the minute hand to tick onto five to nine exactly before you start the exam. You all wait expectantly, staring at the clock. Somebody coughs. Somebody shifts in their chair. The minute hand never moves. You are still waiting.
• Your exam is two hours and thirty minutes. You may begin. You are advised to spend the first 40 minutes on this section. You check the clock. There are fifteen minutes remaining.
• You expect to be handed a separate formula booklet. There is none to be seen. The invigilator tells you it is inside the front cover. You should have always known this. It has always been there.
• Somebody sneezes twice, very loudly in the middle of the exam. It makes you jump and smudge your answer to question 2 (a). You ask your classmates afterwards who it was. Nobody else heard the sneeze.
• The question from last year's paper comes up. You have been through this question three times in class. You do not remember the answer. You cannot find the answer. You cannot continue to the next question. You are stuck on question 3 (b) (i) forever.
• Your neck is seizing up. You move it sideways slightly. It cracks. Everyone is looking at you. The invigilator is looking at you. You are clearly spying on your neighbour. Shame on you. It does not matter. Nobody cares.
• The invigilator is a woman with a bob cut. She wears too many long, flowing scarves. The scarves entrance you. You cannot ignore them. There are five minutes remaining.
• There are two other exams happening in the same room as you. Everyone else's exams are one hour shorter than yours. You do not notice everybody leave.
• When you leave the exam hall, there is a box containing calculator cases. There are more calculator cases in this box than there have ever been calculators in the room. This is to be expected.
• You leave the room, happy to be free. You ask the others how they found question nine. They say there was no question nine. You log onto the student room exam discussion. Nobody else saw question nine. You do not remember what it was about.