(+1) Although an answer to this question, at least to me, is totally obvious, I guess someone needs to give it! Of course, it's possible the OP is thinking of situations where for some reason a student cannot ask questions about the exam, but if so, I think that constraint should have been made explicit. From the instructor's vantage, these situations are lessened with experience, and here I'm not just speaking of experience gained after-the-fact for such exam questions, but also awareness and interactions with students during lectures & office hours, and colleague shop-talk advice, etc.

At some universities, like UCL, this is explicitly forbidden: the procedure there is that the invigilator can't give an answer, but the student is expected to fill out a form detailing their concern, which is passed to the examiners alongside their script. But this is in some ways better since it definitively brings the matter to the attention of the graders, and creates a paper trail. In any institution, students could also write in their answer something like "I have no idea what a fortnight is, and have answered on the basis that it means ten days", which a grader would certainly see.

This is only realistic in some scenarios. In others it is impossible.

so @alexg not only do UK instructors occasionally use “confusing” language but students are not allowed to ask for clarifications? I get it that invigilators should not answer questions as their answers could be wrong or misleading, but shouldn’t the instructor be present just in case there is in fact something to clarify?

@ZeroTheHero Depends on the place. UCL's rule is at 7.2 in ucl.ac.uk/academic-manual/chapters/…. Oxford's at ox.ac.uk/students/academic/exams/completing-an-exam/… is similar (see "Paper errors"). I think the intention is to avoid issues about invigilators whispering different things to different students, or the fairness of re-writing a question on the fly when some students will have already answered it.

@alexg agreed you don’t want invigilators involved. Just involve the instructors instead. Errors do creep up even when everybody is really careful.

@ZeroTheHero Places I'm familiar with: at Cambridge, an instructor is present for the first 30 minutes of any exam for just this reason; at Plymouth, the invigilators always have the instructor's mobile 'phone number, likewise.

@DanielHatton we have similar regulations where I work, where “instructor” can be replaced by “competent invigilator” capable of troubleshooting exams on the spot.

We have a regulation that the person setting the exam must be reachable during the exam, precisely for that reason.

What about a dictionnary ?

Hah, I thought I was (as an American) soooo smart when I already knew what a fortnight was (and not the video game)... and here I learn what an invigilator is...

I'm not totally convinced that someone from the US would not know what a fortnight is. There is actually an incredibly famous video game from the US called Fortnite. It had this name because originally you had to defend a base for 2 in-game weeks (ie. a fortnight).

@Tom I'm Canadian and thought a fortnight was 2 days. Maybe 4. It did not matter because I never needed to really know since no one uses it. I've only seen it in poems so for a long time I thought it referred to some romantic but vague notion of time because that's how I saw it used. In speech, it was only ever mentioned by a high school teacher who mused whether anyone knew what a fortnight was and we weren't told even then. Do you know what a toque is?

No, I don't know what a toque is, because it's not a word in English. I understand it to mean ''touch'' or ''tap'' from the Spanish noun ''toque''.

@Tom it's definitely English and is Canadian for a beanie. I only know this from Linus Tech Tips who is Canadian, but most Americans wouldn't.

@Esther The very word "beanie" has changed its meaning within my lifetime. It used to mean a hat somewhat like a ball cap but either with a very small bill or no bill at all, typically worn by ~1950s college freshmen to signify their freshman-hood. I was not alive in the 1950s, but even so, up until recently that was the meaning I understood. Samples: library.osu.edu/site/beanies

Now "beanie" seems to have morphed into what I would call a "ski hat" looking like this: rei.com/c/ski-hats

iow a toque