The Big Test

The TEST

On Wednesday I took my very first test here at the University College Cork. It was probably the most official test I have ever taken! The test took place in the Aula Maxima, which is the oldest building on campus, probably about 200 years old. In this huge Harry Potter like room where they have these ancient desks spread out exactly 1 meter apart from every other desk. The night before we had to print out an Examination Bill that had all of our information along with a specific seat number. Of course I had the seat in the front of the center row right by all five exam proctors. I had no intention of cheating but it was kind of annoying when I was trying to take the test and the old ladies were talking about desk number 56 dropping her pen on the floor and how desk 106 was taping his shoe. We wrote our answers in this large green examination booklet. I felt like I was signing my life away with all of the information I had to fill out on the front of these booklets. Nevertheless, after three hours of thinking, writing, and analyzing I am sure I did well and I no longer have to take another fine arts class again!

Mark Scheme

Another interesting fact about this place is the way they do grades or marks as they are referred to here in Ireland. So in Ireland students do not receive letter grades or even GPA’s instead they are ranked. The highest ranking someone can receive is first class honors and to receive this mark you have to score between 70% and 100%. Between 60 to 69% one would receive a second class honours. A third class honours would be awarded for those that score between 50% to 59%. A passing score is from 40% to 49% and failing is between 0% to 39%. For us Americans that seems pretty easy because a 70% is a C or simply average but according to the professors here they rarely ever award scores in the 90’s. I haven’t gotten any work returned yet so we will have to see whether school is easier here in Ireland or the same as in the United States.

Future Trips

Since both of my roommates are good Catholics it was important that we go to Rome, Italy to see the Vatican. So we found some cheap flights on Ryanair, “Europe’s on time and discount airline” and are flying to Venice Italy where we will sight see for two days and then take a night train to Rome. Since we are budget travelers we really try to take transportation in the nighttime, so we don’t have to pay for accommodations. We are going to stay in Rome for two days and then take another night train to Florence, and spend a couple days there. We leave Thursday the 22^nd and return the 27^th. Luckily none of us will be missing class since Monday is a Bank Holiday and the college is closed and no one has class on Fridays or Tuesdays

When my roommates and I have nothing to do we tend to spend time on ryanair.com trying to find our next trip and occasionally Ryanair will have these special fares or discounts. So one late night Matt and I were on the Ryanair website and we found a Free flight to Oslo Norway. So of course we booked it because it was FREE. The only charge we incurred was the 5 Euro fee they charge to book a flight with a credit card. Which is kind of a scam seeing as they require you to use a credit card to book a flight. The only way you can get around paying the credit card fee is if you have a visa electron card, which I have never heard of. So we leave for Oslo on the 3^rd of November where we plan to spend a couple of day and then take another night train to Stockholm Sweden and then return to Ireland. The return flight was only 130 Sweedish Kroners which is equivalent to about 15 Euros.