The One About the Exams....

So Tuesday morning very quickly came around.  And I was rudely awakened by the wind and the rain well before the alarm was due to go off.  It sounded like a hurricane, and a down pour all at once (it always sounds worse in our bedroom that we would expect as we're right at the top of the house directly under the roof).  My first thought was oh o, I've got to go down an unfamiliar motorway to the exam venue in torrential rain.  So all I could do was hope that the rain would hold off later on.

Because I had to be at the exam venue for 9am, and I didn't know how long it would take me to get there in the rush hour, I raced around the house, and was off at 7:30am (I know it sounds mad to leave an hour and a half for a 40minute journey, but last time I went down this motorway in the rush hour it took me over an hour just to get to the motorway, so I was being cautious!)  Luckily the rain had eased off, and the traffic wasn't so bad so I was worrying for no reason (I worry about everything - its very difficult to turn it off!)

Photo courtesy of Ashton Under Lyne.com

The other issue was that the exam venue didn't have a car park, and I had to kind of follow my nose and hope for the best when I got there to find a car park, as I didn't know Stockport at all!  Well as I got closer to the town centre, all I could see were big signs telling me where the car parks were, and how many spaces were left!  So again, worrying for nothing!!!  I can't parked just around the corner from the venue, and arrived at twenty to nine - I know miles to early but what could I do!

So as it was the first exams I've taken for my AAT I had a lot of questions.  It turned out that we get our exam results about ten minutes after the exam finished, so that really pleased me as I hate waiting for anything!  And I was told that the other students doing their exams in the room might be sitting different exams to me, so I mustn't worry if some of them finish before me (I'm quite glad I was told this as in the second exam someone left after 30mins and I would have panicked!)

Well the exam was due to start at 9:30am, and I was starting to get nervous, I'd read and re-read my prompt cards and just wanted to get in the room, and get it over with!  But, someone hadn't turned up, and we had to wait for them to sort that out before we could go in.  Ten minutes later, still feeling nervous, and we were shepherded in.  I was quite relieved to find that the first exam included questions similar to the practice papers I had done so I was able to just get on with it.  I had plenty of time to check over my answers, and left early.  And..... I passed!  You don't get a numerical result with these exams, you get either a pass or a fail.  (To pass you have to get 70%)

So I had a couple of hours to kill before the second exam was due to start, then it all started again at 1:30pm (each exam was 2 hours long), and this exam was far more difficult than I was expecting.  The questions were not at all like the past papers that I had done, and so I had to take educated guesses with some of the questions.  And, I hadn't even got halfway yet when the first student left after half an hour.  Because I knew he wasn't doing the same exam I didn't let it get to me.  I plodded on, until I was the last one in the room (thats doesn't sound so bad there were only 5 of us taking the exams) and when I had checked everything over I walked out, knowing I had done everything I could.  I didn't feel very confident at all about this one, and while I waited for the result, I had butterflies in my tummy, and my heart was racing!  But... I had passed, and breathed a sigh of relief!

Competent means a pass, not competent means a fail.

Yey, half of the Level 2 qualification complete, only half to go!!!  I'm now just waiting for the next batch of study materials to arrive so I can get started.  You would think I would want a break from it, but it feels like I've been revising forever for those last two exams, and now I'm just keen to learn more new things :)

In other news, because I passed the exams I treated myself to an scrapbook stash order from Sarahs Cards (I was thinking about it last weekend, and I haven't bought any new stash in 18 months!)  I'm just waiting for it to arrive now, fingers crossed it comes today so that I can open it this weekend!  Will share piccies when it comes!

Don't forget if you haven't done already to leave a link to your favourite LO at the moment at the bottom of this post here.