Education, Cognition and Learning - TEST

Friday I had an exam in psychology, in a course called Education, Cognition and Learning. Before the test I read two books (Bereiter: Surpassing Ourselves, and McKeough: Teaching for Transfer) and emailed the responsible teacher a few times, because the intranet didn't give me specific information about the test.

Well. I was told to read the two books (originally 3 books, but I chose to read only two of them), sign up for the "general exam" and then show-up at the right time and the right place without bringing other things than my pencil and my student card. And so I did...

I was waiting outside the room where the general exam would take place in a few minutes. A woman came outside and started saying people's names in an alphabetical order and giving the right person the right test-assignment on their way in to the examination room. When it was my turn I was handed a plastic pocket with a few papers in it. Even though two Finnish girls I met in a knitting club had told me more or less what I should expect, I felt like a stranger and tried my best to observe what other people did - and then do the same my self..

Eventually I ended up in a huuuge lecture-hall where people were sitting - in what for me appeared to be random places - so I chose a seat in the middle of the room where no one else was sitting. Again, I looked around me to see what other people were doing, and did the same.. grabbed a pen and a water bottle from my bag and placed the plastic pocket on a small desk in front of me.

Three supervisors (I guess that was what they did) sat at their tables in the "bottom" of the hall (it looked a bit like a concert hall with some sort of a scene in front of the seats). A white board was next to them where simething Finnish was written - and I had of course no idea what the sign was saying. I just had to trust the information the teacher had given my by email.

At one point it got really quiet and one of the supervisors said something and people opened their plastic pockets - and so did I.

Inside of it were two documents. One document had some information about the course and the other document had two questions (one pr. book) and a "Good luck" from my teacher (whom I've never met).

I read the questions carefully and started writing (mind-mapping and making a first draft before making the final draft). After ½ hour a lot of people left and when 2 hours had passed by most students had left the examination room. It seemed a bit strange to me that people didn't spend all of the examination time(general exams are 4 hours), but the Finnish girls had told me that it was fairly easy to pass these exams, so I figured I could do the same.
3 hours in to the test I finished my second essay. I handed it in to the supervisors, signed some papers, and showed them my studentID (I had seen other students do this and therefore tried to do the same).

I don't want to jinx it, but the questions seemed easy and quite general so I will be quite disappointed if I fail the exam.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

And no matter what happens, I can still say that I've tried a "typical" Finnish book exam and know a lot more about transfer of learning and expert-learning...

PS you should all have a look at the two books - or other similar books!