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#53409 01/22/02 01:48 AM
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BBC News has story about errors in exam sheets made it impossible for studens taking exam to solve problem. Error was discovered in Hong Kong 8 hours before exam was given in UK. Exam company was notified, but kept information from UK officials. In describing the problem in the exam room, what in US would be called "monitors" were called "invigilators".

"As the maths candidates were asking the invigilators what they should do and the invigilators were conferring, the geography candidates were indirectly affected by this as
it caused us a great deal of disruption," he said.

Not a word for US to borrow from the UK.


#53410 01/22/02 04:14 AM
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I think I like invigilator more, Dr. Bill, it seems to imply a more active surveillance. Whereas monitor is more passive and stand-offish.


#53411 01/22/02 05:51 AM
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If in USn usage monitors are invigilators, what do USns call monitors? In the UK they are (or were) appointed by the teacher to help distribute materials in class and collect in books, and that kind of thing.

Bingley


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#53412 01/22/02 11:51 AM
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The person you are describing, Bingley, is called a "room monitor", and is a student. Someone watching test-takers is just a monitor. I don't like that word invigilator--it summons up fearsome images, somehow!


#53413 01/22/02 12:10 PM
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I don't like that word invigilator--it summons up fearsome images, somehow!

Amen, Jackie. Shades of Big Brother!


#53414 01/22/02 01:16 PM
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I don't like that word invigilator--it summons up fearsome images, somehow!

Amen, Jackie. Shades of Big Brother!

Yeahbutİ have wanted to say that since I joined! don't we want a fearsome person monitoring exams to be sure there is no cheating?

And as I recall, we didn't have monitors in our exams. They were called proctors.


#53415 01/22/02 01:55 PM
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A proctor is somebody who proctoscopes suspected cheaters.


#53416 01/22/02 02:48 PM
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My favorite monitor/proctor/invigilator story is of student taking exam in Mem Hall, in a room the size of a shopping mall, including a couple alcoves. In one of the latter a student did not realize exam time was over, until person in charge informed him he would not be allowed to submit his exam booklet. The student was quick wtted enough to rear back and demand: "Do you know who I am?" Startled, the official said:"No." "Good," said the student, and put his booklet into the pile of exam booklets, and tumbled them around.


#53417 01/22/02 04:50 PM
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dr. bill, there is apparently precisely such a scene in the move Slackers, scheduled for release on Feb. 1.
http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/slackers/, and view the trailer


#53418 01/22/02 11:04 PM
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There's been an ad running on New Zealand TV for some years using that scene. I think it was advertising some kind of snack bar.

During my university days, the invigilators were generally retired academics and their equally aged kin earning a few extra dollars (or reliving their youths vicariously, I suppose).

To this day when I see the word, I think of these elderly folk stalking up and down the rows of mentally perspiring candidates.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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