I'm trying to translate a sentence and I don't know if I am correct. I am trying to say that professors keep the exams with student's answers in a box under lock and key for several months because the law says so, to prevent losing them, and it's for a form to fill out to make a request.

  • Request custody of exams ?
  • Request exam custody ?
  • Request safekeeping of exams ?

For Spanish speakers, my sentence is "Solicitud custodia de exámenes".

  • There are several interpretations of your question. Please edit it to clarify. Are you asking about the exam questions (paper) before the exam is taken, or after it is taken? Or are you asking about the papers with the students' answers? Or, all of these variations? – AdrianHHH Jan 24 '17 at 12:35
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    Are you using this in a sentence, or is it more like a title of a form to fill out to make the request? – ColleenV Jan 24 '17 at 12:43
  • It is a title of a form to make a request. – meow_god Jan 24 '17 at 12:46
  • In the financial world, regulations require that documents be retained for a certain period in case they might be needed later, so that might be a good place to start. I will have to think about it a little more before I can write a proper answer. – ColleenV Jan 24 '17 at 12:51
  • "Request for Secure Retention of Exam Results " might be the way I would title the form if I were trying to be very official. It's pretty verbose though. Maybe someone will think of something more concise. – ColleenV Jan 24 '17 at 13:50

I don't understand "exam" in the sense of "student's completed answer paper" in English. (It might work in context, if you had already established that you were talking about these, and then used "exams" as a shorthand; but not otherwise).

I'm not sure there is an established term for these. Some possibilities that occur to me are:

completed exams

answer papers

exam scripts.

I think "answer papers" is probably the most generally useful. So I would say "Request safe-keeping of (exam) answer papers".

You might or might not need "exam" in there depending on whether the context of an exam is already established.

You could say "exam papers", but that is subject to the ambiguity AdrianHHH pointed out: it could also mean the papers that were to be presented to the candidates in the exam.

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