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.

I think I like invigilator more, Dr. Bill, it seems to imply a more active surveillance. Whereas monitor is more passive and stand-offish.

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

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!

I don't like that word invigilator--it summons up fearsome images, somehow!

Amen, Jackie. Shades of Big Brother!

I don't like that word invigilator--it summons up fearsome images, somehow!

Amen, Jackie. Shades of Big Brother!

Yeahbut© 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.

A proctor is somebody who proctoscopes suspected cheaters.

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.

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

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.

Hmm...You can see I've been away from the Board all week when these old threads pop back to the top...

We use invigilators here, too. I've never heard the word monitors used in that sense. However, grad students are often (usually) paid to invigilate exams. So, CK, in Canada, we invigilators are not wizened, elderly folk. Not just yet!

I, too, would call these people proctors. Invigilators sounds like it's full of treachery and deception -- a cross between inveigle and infiltrator. Commonweathers, how do you pronounce it? Hard G or soft? Where's the accent?

Soft G. Second syllable.

Ah ha - Canadian dissension (allo Bean)...here in Québec we do not have invigilators. This word is not heard, used or known. When taking an exam you are usually supervised by either a T.A. (teacher’s assistant), a teacher or a supervisor.

A monitor (the human kind not the screen kind ) is usually a person in charge of young children doing some activity.

wwh: That's a true story you tell here or a joke? I hope it really happened because it shows a jump and a start. I hope that student just threw that exam in the heapy old pile and ran like a blaze.

On invigilator: I like this term a great deal, especially when considering the alligators my Aunt Imogene used to wrestle. There were always several that lay about watching her, alligator invigilators, opening their milky eyes to see how the contest was unfolding.

Whooshing away here,
Orion'sAlligatorBelt