The Final Exam

The exam room was silent except for the sound of pens and the rain against the tall windows. Gonzalo looked at the clock: two hours to go. He had been studying English in Cambridge for almost a year, and this exam would decide whether he could start his engineering degree in September. He took a deep breath and turned over the first page.

The first part was reading. The text was about a man who had moved to a new country and felt lonely for months. Gonzalo smiled. He remembered his first week in England, last September. It had rained every single day, he had lost his umbrella twice, and he hadn't understood a word his landlady said. She spoke so fast that he just nodded and said "yes" to everything. That was how he had accidentally agreed to look after her cat for a whole weekend.

Next came a grammar section. Question twelve asked him to complete a sentence: "If I ___ more time, I would travel more." He wrote "had" without thinking, and he remembered his teacher, Mrs. Hughes, who repeated that rule every day until the whole class could say it in their sleep. In October he used to make the same mistakes again and again. Now the answers came easily.

The writing task asked him to describe a person who had influenced him. Gonzalo chose Kofi, his flatmate from Ghana. They had met on the first day of the course, when both of them were standing in the wrong classroom. Kofi had taught him to cook rice the West African way, and Gonzalo had taught Kofi to make ceviche. They had spoken English together every day, because it was their only common language. Gonzalo wrote faster than ever, and he only stopped when the examiner announced that there were ten minutes left.

The last part was listening. A woman was describing a boat trip on the River Cam. Gonzalo knew that river well. In the spring, his classmates had rented a small punt, and he had tried to steer it with a long pole. He had ended up in the water, in front of about fifty tourists, while his friends were laughing so much that they couldn't help him. It was one of the best days of his year.

When the examiner said "Stop writing, please," Gonzalo put down his pen. His hand hurt, but he felt calm. Whatever the result was, he knew that he wasn't the same person who had arrived at the airport with a dictionary and a heavy suitcase.

Outside, the rain had stopped. Kofi was waiting for him at the gate with two coffees. "So?" he asked. Gonzalo took one of the coffees and grinned. "I think," he said slowly, "that if I had written any more, my hand would have fallen off."