What a nightmare today!!!

So first of all, I spend a quiet morning going over practice question for this local boating exam. Most of the navigation questions are very easy and I concentrate my attention on the specific geographic ones. There seems to be no problem so around lunchtime I set off for the National Maritime Academy to take my test. This is about 40 minutes away from my apartment.

I arrive at the run-down facilities of the Academy - full of apparently disillusioned students, leisurely thrown over a sofa or gathered around a pool table in their recreational area. We are first introduced to the Computer Lab where we are to take our exam. I feel very relaxed, drink a little bit of water - cannot help thinking about my GMAT days and finally set out to answer the 30 questions ahead of me. I do well on this test, the questions are easy, clearly posed and I have no difficulties finishing the test is about 15 mins.

Then things got more complicated. The invigilator - a huge Indian guy with no concept of psychological subtlety leaves us all waiting by the door for the rest of the time, when he is supposed to give us our printed results. Since the system is supposed to be completely automated, this is supposed to take minutes only.

At the end of the alloted hour for the test, he comes to us and indicates that unfortunately, he can access but not print the results. He has called a captain to try to fix the problem. The captain is busy examining students on their practical, so it takes a while before we see any sign of assistance. Finally, the captain, someone who has this air of authority about him and the Indian guy lock themselves up in the computer lab. After a short while, the Indian guy who decidedly does not understand human mind indicates that there is a small chance that we might all have to retake the test since he has lost everybody's results.

They faff around with the equipment for another few minutes to finally emerge from the computer lab, like miners exhausted after a day of labor - they offer the option to take a paper test, or wait for new computer two weeks from now. I opt for the paper test - nothing to lose at this stage.

The paper test is an old paper. They don't have enough copies of it, so the captain needs to make photocopies. Finally, we all sit down in a classroom and are explained the new rules of the game. We all start - in the midst of chaos. Cell phones go off, inviligators go in and out as they please, they leave the door open to talk to the security guard outloud to explain that they will take a bit longer than usual...etc...

All in all, a real nightmare. By then, the lack of respect shown by various people with cell phones, makes me feel a little annoyed - just a touch.

The test is a lot vaguer than the computer-based ones. Questions are harder and lot more specific to Singapore. I have no problem with the standard navigation ones but I struggle a bit more with some of the blurry questions.

We then have to wait forever for them to mark the papers. Two people are going over the test, double checking every answer. They come out only when they have at least 50% of the results. They shout out everybody's results out loud - so much for privacy and Asian saving face!

I failed by ONE point. Needless to say that this is rather annoying but hey, probably the way it was supposed to be. No regrets there. The whole course will be a write-off as I won't have time now to take the other test since next week is a week off for them (a few 00s S$ but I guess that I tried to play it foolish by taking no chance with time, so I should not be surprised to find myself in this situation. Pretty stupid of me to have done this in the first place. Hopefully, some of it will be useful in my future outings, which is what matters really)

Anyway, a rather horrible day by all means...