Bad conditions in the examination hall – Need Urgent Advice from OT team

I gave P3 in this session and I was very well prepared for it, getting 70-75% marks in the tests and mocks of my ACCA Platinum Status holder tuition provider ( actually the best rated in the country ) so you can assume the tests and markings are strict.

Now on the day of the exam I entered the exam hall with scorching heat outside ( temperature of 45-50 degrees celsius ) and found myself seated at the back of a very very very large hall with seating of atleast 5000 students. The hall was divided in two sections and obvious enough I was in the smaller section with me sitting in the second last chair of the second last row.

To my astonishment there were not sufficient ACs in our smaller hall and it was very hot and humid. I didn’t think of it much at first and filled my details on the answer booklet as 15 mins passed by and only 15 mins left before the start of the exam. The lights go out in our section only and ACs turned off and the generators not kicking in for a few mins, it got pretty damn HOT pretty damn fast. Now when the lights did come back on I was already sweating and feeling the heat reaching my head and making me dizzy a bit, where I was sitting there were no ACs close by.

I called the invigilator and asked to be re-seated since there was no proper cooling where I was sitting. He said he can’t reseat me and they are working on the situation.

What they did was setup a standing fan at the back of the room two rows next to me and it was not rotating so I was again not getting any cool air, I complained numerous times to be reseated or to speak with the exam senior but no luck. A girl sitting next to me walked upto the exam senior sitting in the front hall and got herself re-seated at the front. I now feel utterly stupid not to have done the same, but I didn’t want to create a fuss with other students suffering the same fate, with many complaining again and again but nothing was being done for us by the British Council invigilation staff, I think it was a very poor setup with most focus on the bigger hall where the lights and ACs stayed on throughout the exam.

By the time the exam started I was angry, frustrated, sweaty, lost a lot of energy and lost most of my focus, I didn’t even want to attempt the paper I had prepared so well for. I once again thought that many others are in the same situation I attempted the exam half heartedly. What’s more is that even during the exam the lights in our section kept going out after each hour when the loadshedding took place and the generators didn’t start right away, again making me lose time and focus and creating more and more frustration. When 3 hours 15 mins passed we had to stop and no extra time was given due to any of the problems we faced, probably because the majority of the students sitting in the bigger hall didn’t face the problems we did 🙁

After the exam I once again asked to speak with the senior invigilator but was denied access once again and was given a feedback form, a few other students also filled it out and left it with the invigilator who I saw putting it away on an unknown table and not even looking at them. So I’m sure he wouldn’t have submitted those to his seniors let alone to ACCA.

Now I received the general ACCA feedback email yesterday and wanted to ask you guys if I should contact ACCA directly and inform them of this whole ordeal and if it will help me in anyway to get a free re-sit or some leniency or getting a pass on the paper, because I truly believe because that if I fail it will be because of the adverse hall conditions due to which I lost all of my focus and energy.

If I do contact ACCA I’m sure they will proof of my claim and the only proof I can give them is statements from a few of my classmates who sat in the same hall as mine but not in the same section, so they might not have faced the same nonsense.

Please advise if this has ever helped anyone and if I should get ACCA involved or not and if it will help me in anyway???

Thanks