Was anyone else aware that the French hate multiple choice exams? Or at least they never give them? The majority of the exams given at the Institute d'Etudes Politiques are actually oral, meaning I show up at the appointed time, the prof gives me a question (which is usually a statement anyway) then I get 10-15 minutes to think about it and create a plan. While you are creating a plan, someone else is already talking. After they are done, you go up, sit with the prof, wait for someone else to come in and get their question, then give what ever little presentation you have come up with in the last 10 minutes. After the prof has stared off into space for the majority of your speaking time, he asks you a few questions on what ever he feels like. They have been anything from "Who is the greatest creator in cinema in the US?" to "What was a very important US legislative act in the 1960s having to do with the press?" (the Freedom of Information Act, which I had already mentioned had the prof been listening to my presentation). After that, you wait several days, then they post your score on a bulletin board, right next to your name, so everyone on earth knows what you got. And you know what they got. It's very open, but can be really horrible because if you did too well or really bad, everyone knows and we have found that they have the tendancy to gossip about it. This is one of the big faults I see in the French education system, this open scoring. In the secondary schools, they actually call out the kids' scores and then make comments about their work right in front of the whole class, which leads to a lot of embarassment. And the teachers have no shame, trust me on that, I have seen and heard that first hand (though never about me thank god!).
So, Conclusion de jour: Prepare for who-knows-what come exam time and pray you did well, 'cause your whole class will know if you bombed.