I had exam anxiety back when I was 17/18, I pretty much panicked during an exam. We were being tested in national university entrance tests twice a year, with t

I had exam anxiety back when I was 17/18, I pretty much panicked during an exam. We were being tested in national university entrance tests twice a year, with the ability to retake previous ones in later sessions, so the workload and stress was immense by the end. I sat down, read the paper, and was completely unable to string the words I was reading into coherent sentences in my head. I got counseling for stress, and thankfully I was able to take the exams as intended. Exam anxiety is real, but the university already had procedures in place about how to deal with that anxiety. Something is wrong, however, when a student only claims exam anxiety after the fact. You know you're anxious about exams before that point. If you are under stress a single time, you know it then. The student already failed that exam once. If the first time he/she was anxious, it should have been reported then. If not, they had a fair shot at passing that exam. The decision of the dean to change how the exam was to be dealt with is not brilliant, but somewhat OK. It's the upgrading of undergraduate coursework to be doctoral level that should be smelling bad. Messing with the way the exam was to be delivered was simply the smoke from the dodgy fire that was burning underneath.