Instructions

Choose one of the three scenarios below. Read it twice. Then complete the two parts of the task in the text box.

Part A takes about five minutes. Tick every statement that applies to your chosen scenario. Some scenarios will have several ticks in the same group, and some statements will be genuinely uncertain, in which case tick it and say why in Part B.

Part B takes about fifteen minutes. Answer the three questions in forty to sixty words each. Write in whichever register is comfortable; this is not an essay and it is not assessed on style. What matters is that you are answering from the scenario rather than from general principle.

You may use your own example instead of a scenario if you prefer. If you do, describe it in about eighty words first, and change details so that no one is identifiable.

Scenario A. The rescheduled examination

A second-year course holds its final examination on a Saturday morning. Four students, all of whom work weekend shifts, ask for it to be moved. The lecturer replies that the date was published at the start of term and that moving it now would disadvantage the eighty students who have already planned around it. One of the four says in the course chat that the date was chosen without asking anyone. Another writes privately to the lecturer apologising for raising it. A third goes to the student representative, who agrees to bring it to the next staff and student committee, in six weeks. The fourth sits the examination and does not mention it again. In the staff and student committee minutes, the item appears as "scheduling query, resolved".

Scenario B. The extension that was already granted

A postgraduate module has a strict no-extensions policy, stated in the handbook. An international student asks for three extra days, explaining that her visa renewal appointment fell in the submission week. The module convenor declines, citing the policy and consistency. Two weeks later she learns that a classmate received four extra days earlier in the term after a conversation in the corridor, with nothing in writing. She raises this. The convenor says that case involved different circumstances which he is not able to discuss, and that he understands her frustration. She is now deciding whether to submit a formal complaint, which would be read by the convenor's head of department, who is also her supervisor's closest collaborator.

Scenario C. The contribution that kept moving

A four-person group project runs over six weeks. One member, the only one who is not a native speaker of the language of instruction, proposes the analytical framing that the group adopts in week two. In the group's written report her framing is described as having emerged from discussion. In the final presentation another member presents it and answers the questions about it. Afterwards the lecturer praises that member's conceptual contribution in front of the group. She says nothing. Later, one of the other members tells her privately that he noticed, and that he did not want to make it awkward by saying something at the time.

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