2010 NCRE. THE EXAM DAY :-)

Yesterday after the exam I was so exhausted I just didn't find the courage to blog about the whole thing right away ;-)

So, first things first. I have to say that (like a lot of other people here) I am really glad this test is behind me now. We sure will have to wait a few months now for the results, but at least there's nothing I can do anymore. La messe est dite, Mesdames et Messieurs...

My examination center was Brussels and it was pretty cool coming from the NCRE-OHRM to arrange the exam to take place in the European Parliament in the Hemicycle right from where the european deputés rule the world :) It was allowed to make pictures, so here is mine:


The first thing that seemed a bit odd to me was the convocation letter saying the exam will start at 1400 but asking in the same time to be present at 1200. I remember thinking they were just making sure everybody will check in in time and didn't really mind taking such precautions. The problem is that it turned out to be a big organizational flaw in that everybody was ready to start at 1300 and that we all had to sit an entire hour in front of our answer booklets just waiting the clock to hit 1400!

Then when it was finally time to start, the Canadian chief of the UN_HR_something_section started reading the instructions - such as no one will be allowed to leave the room after the answers are unsealed, or that eating and drinking are strongly prohibited in the hemicycle - in both French and English in a way that I personally found very much not rehearsed. It took us something like 35 minutes just to find out that half of the answer booklets in the hemicycle were misprinted and then it took us 20 more minutes to replace them. Once done, they started distributing the questions which was also pretty colorful; every occupational group had to raise their hands to get their copy (this is actually what allowed me to my great great surprise to notice that there were only about 10 web designers in the room - so much for my stats). At 1505 the exam scheduled initially for 1400 finally started. At that point we were already sitting in the room for 2 hours.

The general paper in my case went over women rights and is eliminatory. Unfortunately I didn't finish it and wrote only about 2/3 of the required words :( If you ever have to prepare for this test, a good advice would be - rehearse on booklet pages (way narrower than usual A4) and write your text very very fast. 45 minutes seem like 15 minutes at that stage.

Then came the specialized paper which I'll try as promised (mainly to myself) to restitute in my next post. All I can say this far is that it was exactly what I expected: very broad, often confusing, general knowledge. You never know how you did on such an exam, but one thing is sure: it could have been waaay worse. I am really happy they provided us with the exam sample that truly reflects their style.

So 4 hours and 30 minutes flew by... And when I was all ready to leave (I had a train to catch at the Bruxelles-Luxembourg train station just underneath the parliament), the organizational beast reared once again his ugly head and said no one would leave until all copies are collected and counted and sealed. Since everybody was happy to see this whole thing was over, everybody just sat there waiting for another 20 minutes without saying a word until finally... No it still wasn't over... Until finally the chief woman said somebody forgat to sign while checking in in the morning. Phenomenal. We spent 5 minutes waiting for people from the Security (I think) occupational group finding out who it was! Never got why they couldn' t just say his name :-)

Then I left. Now I am waiting.