Worst Fountain Pen Melt Down During An Exam?

[Namru]

I studied fine art photography at university, so not many exams there. At secondary school, I didn't turn up for most. Science, graphic design and music (four easy C's), all of which I used a Jotter ball point I got with a VHS copy of Golden Eye.

 

In fact, the only disaster I've ever had with a FP was when a barrel on a TWSBI 540 cracked and changed the colour of my pen pouch into a nice shade of Ultra Green.

[Tom Aquinas]

Exams? Yikes! Memories of exams are lost in the dim expanse of time since dirt was still being beta tested. When I was doing all that exam nonsense, animals could still talk and Methusala was riding a hobby horse.

 

You are lucky. I still get nightmares over my final professional subject exams, and with those fortunately the pens behaved very well, still three however, usually a P75, Man 100, and, a MB146.

[Ghost Plane]

Cartridges were my friend. Sheaffer el cheapos in grade school. Cross slightly less cheapos high school and college. Waterman grad school and post grad.

 

Waterman will handle all but the worst spongy exam books.

 

ALL my exam disasters involved blotting, blobbing and non-functioning ballpoints and/or roller balls when officialdom insisted on using them. Sigh...

[apkayle]

None. I always come prepared with backups.

 

How do the bluebooks take FP ink?

 

My school sells a bluebook made by Roaring Springs. The paper is surprisingly fountain pen friendly, although it does somehow quickly dry ink without causing a feathery mess.

[apkayle]

As for my own experiences...

 

I used a Sheaffer 330 medium nib. Never again. That nib is too wet and broad to handle cheap lined paper or make economic use of the scant writing space some bluebooks provide.

[Tom Aquinas]

Cartridges were my friend. Sheaffer el cheapos in grade school. Cross slightly less cheapos high school and college. Waterman grad school and post grad.

 

Waterman will handle all but the worst spongy exam books.

 

ALL my exam disasters involved blotting, blobbing and non-functioning ballpoints and/or roller balls when officialdom insisted on using them. Sigh...

Cartridges...correct. Cartridges are easy to carry and not messy to reload. I always carried a couple of spare cartridges. A reason why I carried so many pens was that my hand tired from an injury and the different nibs and pen shapes rested my hand. I did one exam only with a Lamy 2000, it was good but in the exam trauma the clutch lugs worried me, I also noticed after a three hour paper the ink was almost out. Similar however applied in my professional life in big matters where ink might be depleted in one pen.

[Plume145]

None, thankfully! But the pens I used on all my exams were basic school-type pens - cheap, but eminently reliable and low-maintenance No fussy creatures or vintage pens or whatever. so that's probably at least partly why! And I used mostly cartridges up until the end of high school and well into college, so it was easy enough to pack along a couple of extras to avoid the run-out-of-ink scenario.

 

Saddest thing I ever saw was my friend Jeremiah coming into class one day with a freshly inked Rapidograph that had literally come apart in his backpack. Think black ink bomb. The backpack was literally dripping... Put me right off of Rapidographs...

 

Rapidographs are evil. They have the ink delivery system of a fountain pen (with a feed) but the ink for rapidograph is heavy, like India ink or something. Problems are a matter of time, and not a lot of it. Thankfully for the past several years you can get marker pens like the Sakura micron that work much like Rapidograph nibs for learning purposes, and most applications where rapidographs were used no longer require them past the learning stage anyway because the pros graduate to computer-assisted.

To err is human, to erase divine. Pencil for exams. Pursuing a degree in the techincal arts is not coductive to pen use during exams.

You know, I've seen this before on this forum, and it's had me wondering because every exam I've ever taken except one was firmly ink-only - pencil was considered too easy to falsify or something. The one that required pencil was the kind with the bubbles for multiple-choice questions - scantron I think? And even there, you had to switch to pen for the essay section.

 

Is that a (North) American thing or something? I mean, the exams I've sat spanned three different educational systems, plus separate exams not affiliated to a national curriculum (foreign language proficiency exams).

[Tom Aquinas]

Regarding Rapidographs, in my first year they were a cult thing, I bought one but I used it that little it gummed up, and rusted. my P21 (with aP51 nib) and P51 were by far the better proposition. Pencils, we never thought of using them, and exam security was and is so tight there would have been little risk of falsification. Anyway, I 'm glad those days are over, exams still give be a gut wrenching feeling in the lower colon.

[andybiotic]

I would NEVER use a fountain pen in an exam. Yes, fps are very nice to use and very elegant, but even the most modern fp CANNOT beat a plastic Bic stick in terms of reliability. Just like a $1000 swiss made automatic watch may not beat a $5 watch with a basic quartz movement in accuracy!

 

I am speaking as somebody who has just been through his biggest (and last) exam of his life and what did I decide to carry with me? Two 50 cent Bic bps.

 

The problem with fountain pen is that they use liquid ink, and nothing in the world can absolutely garantee it won't leak from whatever reason.

 

Please everyone, as much as I love using fountain pens, I urge you, don't use it in emergency / important situations where you can't afford to have anything fail on you!

 

Just like you shouldn't use a lift in a fire!

Edited June 27, 2013 by andybiotic

[Tom Aquinas]

I would NEVER use a fountain pen in an exam. Yes, fps are very nice to use and very elegant, but the even the most modern fp CANNOT beat a plastic Bic stick in terms of reliability. Just like a $1000 swiss made automatic watch may not beat a $5 watch with a basic quartz movement!

 

I am speaking as somebody who has just been through his biggest (and last) exam of his life and what did I decide to carry with me? Two 50 cent Bic bps.

 

The problem with fountain pen is that they use liquid ink, and nothing in the world can absolutely garantee it won't leak from whatever reason.

 

Please everyone, as much as I love using fountain pens, I urge you, don't use it in emergency / important situations where you can't afford to have anything fail on you!

 

Just like you shouldn't use a lift in a fire!

I used them because I had an injured hand, and biros dragged across the paper, and especially in 2x 3hr exams quite debilitating. They wrote easier and I was more comfortable. I have never had them leak ink, even on aircraft. In fact many of my peer group used fountain pens for exams for the simple reason they were more comfortable to use than ball pens. I found that out in High School public exams before I was injured, and used a P51, many of the fathers of fellow students got the boys 51's specifically for the public exams. So my advice with great respect is contrary based on experience. I have only had one blip and that was a faulty pen, which you can suffer with ball pens, and I have had ball pens leak but not fps.

[andybiotic]

Someone above made a very good point, you will never know if the cheap paper they give you in the exam can take you ink! You certainly wouldn't want your writing to look like a piece of modern art that no one understands!

 

....Unless you ARE trying to do a piece of modern art for your exam.... Apologies to any artist. I am not creative or sophisticated enough to understand these things... I've see some paintings which in my eyes look like coffee stains on a canvas...

[andybiotic]

I used them because I had an injured hand, and biros dragged across the paper, and especially in 2x 3hr exams quite debilitating. They wrote easier and I was more comfortable. I have never had them leak ink, even on aircraft. In fact many of my peer group used fountain pens for exams for the simple reason they were more comfortable to use than ball pens. I found that out in High School public exams before I was injured, and used a P51, many of the fathers of fellow students got the boys 51's specifically for the public exams. So my advice with great respect is contrary based on experience. I have only had one blip and that was a faulty pen, which you can suffer with ball pens, and I have had ball pens leak but not fps.

 

My experiences with long exams are also very debilitating, but I don't notice it till after the exam as I was so focused. Granted, you have a hand injury, that is a different scenario as your priority is your hand rather than the reliability of your pen.

 

Interestingly enough, I was just about to write that I have heard stories of even some of the most reliable pens such as the p51 have accidents. In fact, one such story just came from my local (part time) pen repairer. He is a P51 collector and one of his trusty regular 51 just leaked all over his briefcase...

 

I stand on my view and urge that in exams, if you don't NEED to use a fountain pen, don't use a fountain pen.

 

If you have hand injuries or just can't stand the long period of writing, have you and your friends consider rollerballs? They write as easily as fps and are almost as reliable as bps.

[Tom Aquinas]

 

My experiences with long exams are also very debilitating, but I don't notice it till after the exam as I was so focused. Granted, you have a hand injury, that is a different scenario as your priority is your hand rather than the reliability of your pen.

 

Interestingly enough, I was just about to write that I have heard stories of even some of the most reliable pens such as the p51 have accidents. In fact, one such story just came from my local (part time) pen repairer. He is a P51 collector and one of his trusty regular 51 just leaked all over his briefcase...

 

I stand on my view and urge that in exams, if you don't NEED to use a fountain pen, don't use a fountain pen.

 

If you have hand injuries or just can't stand the long period of writing, have you and your friends consider rollerballs? They write as easily as fps and are almost as reliable as bps.

Tried roller balls no good for me, the refills last about a fortnight. I also found ink was better and cheaper than roller balls which I regard as a fad, and not as good as a ball pen for the purposes I would only use it (carbon paper). I prefer to use a fountain pen anyway, and it got me through exams for three degrees so there is nothing bad I can say about them except for the one disaster. To each his own, I suppose.

[WaskiSquirrel]

I've always come with backups: lots of them. I always brought at least 2 fountain pens (college was why I bought my second fountain pen). I always had a ballpoint or two with me and a pencil.

 

Oddly, I never had trouble with a pen. I still always come well prepared. Probably the one time I bring only one pen is when I'll have trouble.

[Reefallo]

Never happened in this corner. Took all my exams armed only with a Sheaffer Targa.

 

That's my story, too. My Targa got me through college (English major, nothing but essay tests). It was never less than 100% reliable.

I had a history teacher in junior high who made us write pages and pages and pages every day. We were given about 10 minutes at the beginning of each class to do it -- he told us he was preparing us for college, where we would have to produce a huge volume of writing in a very short period of time.

That cemented my relationship with fountain pens, because they were the only way I could write fast enough to grind out the number of pages he demanded.

I still can't imagine taking a test any other way.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Reefallo

[orfew]

When I wrote exams I was not the fan of fps that I am now. I therefore never wrote an exam with an fp. However, I do mark exams with an fp.

[scorchgeek]

I've never had a fountain pen meltdown, but I have had serious pen problems.

 

I was taking an Advanced Placement test. Knowing the paper was horrible, and this being before I'd discovered the wonders of Noodler's Bulletproof Black for terrible paper, I decided to bring a three-color gel multipen instead of a fountain pen to the exam.

 

I cheerfully finished the first essay, then moved on to the next. In the middle of the second one, my black ink started fading. I kept writing for a little while until it died, then unconcernedly pressed the blue tab. It was only a few sentences later that the blue started fading. I could have tried the red, but I decided against it because the directions stipulated blue or black ink only and it was almost empty anyway. Being foolish, I hadn't brought any backups (I had extra pencils, but those were only allowed on the multiple-choice section). So I raised my hand for an extra pen from the proctor. The only thing was, so many people had neglected to bring a pen at all (this is a lecture hall full of sixteen-year-olds) that there weren't any extras left. I had to sit for a good five minutes doing nothing while we waited for someone else to come in with one.

 

I had to take the rest of the test with a Bic ballpoint that was nearly dry and kept going out and having to be revived with swirling, and the whole time I was deathly afraid it was going to cut out and leave me with no pen again. My hand hurt for the entire day afterwards. The next year I brought a full fountain pen, a full rollerball pen, the same gel pen (full), a full bottle of ink, two sets of refills for the gel pen, and an entire box of pencils and a pencil sharpener. It wasn't going to happen again!

 

So I think the real lesson here isn't not to use a fountain pen, it's to bring at least one backup tool, preferably two. Any pen can give out on you.

[flyingfox]

You know, I've seen this before on this forum, and it's had me wondering because every exam I've ever taken except one was firmly ink-only - pencil was considered too easy to falsify or something. The one that required pencil was the kind with the bubbles for multiple-choice questions - scantron I think? And even there, you had to switch to pen for the essay section.

 

Is that a (North) American thing or something? I mean, the exams I've sat spanned three different educational systems, plus separate exams not affiliated to a national curriculum (foreign language proficiency exams).

 

It is a Japanese thing as well. In elementary school in Japan, ONLY pencils are allowed in normal classes (calligraphy classes and art classes are exceptions.) Not even mechanical pencils were allowed in my days, but now some teachers in some schools seems to allow them, according to my friends with kids. In jr. high and HS, the use of mechanical pencil, ballpoint pen or other writing utensils is allowed for taking notes, but exams had to be written by pencil or mechanical pencil. Only American teachers (teaching English classes) in my HS allowed the use of ballpoint pens with black or blue inks for exams, but that was highly exceptional. Just about everyone used pencil anyways, just for the fact that we could use eraser.

 

When I took English proficiency exam and other professional exams in Japan, I took the whole thing, even the essay section, using a mechanical pencil, just like most others did.

 

And yes, eraser was my best friend during exams! Even to this day, I can never, ever, ever imagine taking exams using a fp or anything that is not easily erasable. If the use of ink is a non-negotiable requirement, I'd use a gel pen with a friction-eraser.

 

 

I have never had any problem because of the pen as a student, as I was one of those OCD-ish, over-prepared kid. I always had like 5 pencils in elementary school. Even in jr. high and HS, I always carried at least two mechanical pencils (complete with a whole container of spare lead,) a few gel pens in assorted colors (my notes were color-coded,) and at least two erasers. Especially for exams, I was afraid that I might drop a pencil or an eraser and cannot get them back quickly, thus the multiples of everything.

 

I have never had an accident with fp, even on the airplane, but I have had (also witnessed on others) ballpoint pens leak in the airplane a couple of times.

 

Interestingly enough, I have always been a lighter traveler than the most, even before I started flying career.

[H. Lime]

As I've written elsewhere -- I dropped my pen nib-first during one of my university exams. I had a back-up (ballpoint, I think), but that accident only added to an already dismal performance.

 

Regarding pencils being falsifiable, the policy where I've studied is to keep the exams and release scans (previously photocopies) of the exam notebooks to the students.

[lahlahlaw]

I was the neurotic kid who brought THREE #2 pencils to the SAT's, and there

was a pencil sharpener in my pocket. People liked flying with me because I was

always overprepared. I carried both black and gold "bobby pins" in my car. (Girls

loved me.) Safety pins, too.

 

I started every college day with two Parker 45's. Both converters were filled after

breakfast, before leaving home. I carried an Altoids tin with two spare cartridges.

 

Average quality fountains shouldn't "burp" on you. Except, I have read that eyedropper

pens do that.

 

If I were starting college in 2013, my pen would be a TWSBI Diamond 540, or 580, or Mini.

Neurotic I think not, when I took the lsat a guy behind me had 10-12 brand new perfectly sharpened pencils, I had three sharpened with a pocket knife.