h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As most of you probably know, my daughter El, also known as Elvised researcher Foxwing, is doing her most important exams at the moment. She started today with the first paper of her English exam. Tomorrow was supposed to be the second paper. She'd predicted exactly what was going to come up on the paper tomorrow and studied it in detail, confident that she'd get very high marks.

But then one of the exam centres today gave out the English 2 paper instead of the English 1 paper. They realised their mistake almost immediately, but some students got a five minute view of tomorrow's paper. So the whole exam nationwide has had to be cancelled. Instead, she'll be sitting English 2 on Saturday morning, with a revised paper.

Which means that all the things she had predicted, all the study is for naught. The new paper will be bound to be different to the paper that was going to come up tomorrow (which she had predicted 100% accurately). And El is in bits about it.

Luckily, everybody else is in the same boat, so hopefully the examiners will take this into account when they're marking.

Oh dear, poor El. That's the last thing you need when you've been working towards an exam for months

It's a tough lesson to learn, that you make plans and then life throws a at you.

What is it with examinations these days? - from the exam boards down to the schools, they don't know their arse from their elbow.

I suppose if this happened in the UK, they wouldn't even be geared up enough to resit it on Saturday.

Poor El

Let's hope the upset will be taken into account when it comes to the marking of the papers.

Poor El. I'm sure she'll still do well, though, she's a very clever girl.

There have been strong hints dropped from on high that students should stick to what they've prepared already as it won't be too different.

There is such a thing as luck in exams. I read that Churchill restricted his study to one topic for an important exam, and that was the topic that came up.

She must be furious. But I'm still betting on her A.

I once covered exactly half of the syllabus for an Electronics exam, which was always eight questions, do any four. The prof was well known for having no pattern at all, he just picked eight topics at random, so I reckoned I'd get two or three from my half, and if I was lucky, all four.

Instead, all eight were from the other half. I got 8%, apparently for spelling my name correctly and drawing a transistor.

Zube

I arrived late for one of my university finals. (It was a different venue to usual). When I turned over the paper, there was question on a journal article that the lecturer had handed out...I was the only person on the course to have read. It accounted for 50% of the marks.

I can't imagine how Iz correctly guessed what was coming up. Even tutors don't always get it right. When I went to night school for my "O" level English Lit in 1977, I had finished the course and at the last lessons she told us to concentrate on the Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet) and Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, as we'd all struggled with the other book, Chaucer's Nuns' Priest's Prologue and Tale. She said we could answer three of the four questions from the two earlier books and score a pass from them. However, I *did* study the Chaucer and am glad I did, as I answered the Romeo & Juliet questions, then got stuck on the Hardy, so much so that I went blank. I went to the Chaucer questions and answered them as fully as I could, culminating in a pass at grade B

This is true.

For our O-level French oral, we were required to learn three subjects to talk about and submit these beforehand. They were numbered 1-3. The examiner would ask us to choose one of three cards, and the number on the card we chose was the subject we'd have to talk to them about.

Anyway, one day long before all this, our French teacher said to us, "Don't worry, lads. I know the lady who's examining you - she's a good friend of mine. I've arranged with her that she'll put the card with topic number 1 in the middle, so you don't have to learn them all."

Well, we heaved a sigh of relief, and some pupils just picked one subject (eg 'ma famille') to learn, and submitted this as number 1. They didn't learn any other topics. In fact some chose some ridiculous topics for 2 and 3 ("Terrapins" sticks in my mind for some reason).

Well on the day, I was one of the last to be examined, and watched the others go in and out of the room. The first guy came out with a huge beam on his face: "Yes, Mr X was right, it's the middle card!".

Then another came out, face white as a sheet: "Don't pick the middle card - it's number 3. I had to talk about bell-ringing".

We then had a succession of similar experiences: "The middle card is number 2", "The card on the right is number 1", "Number 1 has a biro mark on it", "I just put a dog-ear in number 3".

By the time I got in there, the examiner had probably realised that something odd was going on and had dispensed with the cards and the choice altogether. "Tell me about your family" she asked wearily (in French).

We never saw that teacher again, either.

'J'ai deux frères - et une singe, qui est dans l'arbre...'

Ed, that sounds like a recurring dream/nightmare that I still have, 20 years later..

I hope all goes well with El in her exam on Saturday. I can't believe how high the points need to be for her chosen course in Trinity!

They reckon that little slip-up will have cost the body organising the exams a million euros, between paying supervisors, organising school buses on a Saturday, and even putting up 33 Jewish students up for the night in a place where they won't have access to phone or internet so that they can do the same exam on Sunday which their religion prohibits them from doing on a Saturday.

One of the English GCSE boards gave out last year's French Paper to quite a lot of candidates. It doesn't sound as though they're going to do anything until they've marked the papers.

So, how did it go?

She's finished English 1, Maths 1 and English 2. The English 2, the famous leaked exam, wasn't too bad, and she doesn't want to dwell on it too much. The Macbeth question was straightforward, and the poets weren't too bad.

English is not her best subject, nor is Maths.

She just has Maths 2, Irish 1, Irish 2, Biology, French, History, Physics and Music left now. Irish, Biology, French, History, Physics and Music are the subjects she hopes to get the A's in that she needs to get into College.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that her plans work out.

Thanks, Bel. That's much appreciated.