It was when I was on my third year of high school. We had a very difficult exam one day and some of us learn hard to pass it (me too). Profesor was odd person — sometimes grade was dependent of his will and person who write almost nothing can pass. But he wasn’t cruel — if you write test properly, you always pass. First part of exam was written, second verbal — diallogue with professor.
When it was my turn to pass verbal part I came into test room and sat down. There was another two students. In the test room was examiner, one person who actuually was examined and two who was preparing themselves.
Person who was just examined was our foreman (student from our specialization who was a connector between us and professors — becouse professors don’t like spam, he was the one to mail them instead of us all and get the things done in deanary for us, for example exams terms). He was very good at subject and he grades max score. The next one was his friend. And here is the point where my demotivating experiece started.
When professor started to ask him a question he interrupted him and said: “I’m with foreman”. Then the professor… just give him max grade and even didn’t check his exam score! I was shocked, but I had no way but to pull myself together and pass this verbal exam.
I passed it (with minimum required score :-/), but the effort I’ve put in learning was very high and max grade given only for beeing foreman friend will be always remembered by me.
What can be done to prevent the situation? Professor should just ask ‘and what?’ and then completed his question. Foreman’s friend should answer and all would be as it should be.