During the weekend, I had a fatal thought. The Leaving seemed to be going okay. I suppose it's like when the heroine of some slasher movie opens the door or when government stability is touted. You just know there's a serial killer or a tribunal lurking behind the door. Up to today, the papers had been reasonably fair. The first section of history was appallingly limited, but nothing Michael Davitt ever did to me can be as horrendous as geography today.
The first problem was that I spent the weekend worrying about Irish. I had belatedly realised that nostalgia and sadness weren't exactly perfect synonyms. And while my essay was probably okay, the shock was enough to make me concentrate on Irish. The second Irish paper was actually very fair. All the questions were approachable and the Clann Uisnigh question was nice and broad. The paper's structure is a little bit fragmented and confusing, but most of the questions were at least interesting. The questions on poetry were standard and, thankfully, that poem about the dead little bird didn't come up, which was my biggest dread.
After three hours of geography, I'd almost be willing to write a hundred theses on Michael Davitt or dead yellow birds. It's hard to describe how utterly crushed everybody looked after the paper. I imagine most parents will be burning with indignation, frantically ringing up everybody from Dana to the President to complain. But amongst the class, the prevailing mood is more disillusionment than anger. Before the exam the signs boded ill. People were genuinely nervous - which had not happened up to now. When I saw the paper, I felt not so much butterflies in my tummy, as a herd of elephants stomping around in there. Usually there are three Ordnance Survey questions - this year there were just two. Not only was the format of the questions different, but the questions themselves bore almost no resemblance to anything that had ever appeared before. One question asked us, as geographers, to select a site for building a bridge across the Shannon. At this stage, all I want to build is a ladder out the window of the exam hall.
Physical geography is equally hideous, especially in the distribution of marks. I'm sure that there is a rich flora in the Burren - the question is worth 50 marks - but all I can envisage is miles upon miles of stone and the occasional patch of grass. Will my lengthy discussion on the rich heritage of grass be especially useful in getting me to college? I appreciate the Department's desire to diversify the course or even to make it less predictable. But they should concentrate on changing the framework of the system instead of thumping us in the stomach with a paper like this.
The problem with the paper is that the vast majority of the people sitting it don't want to be geographers and the fact is that future lawyers, doctors or journalists may be stopped in their tracks because they're not really sure where to build a bridge across the river Shannon.