What not to do in Exams 2

The memories are flooding back now.

Helen, how could you possibly have failed to secure the lid of the food processor in your domestic science exam?

Tracey, when in English ‘O’ Level, they asked you to “write an essay on this postcard”, they meant for you to take inspiration from the picture, not turn it over and physically write an essay in very tiny handwriting on the back of the card.

Kath, when they asked for somebody who “was to animals as a doctor is to humans” the answer they were looking for was “vet”, not some species of animal that was skilled in diagnosis and healing. (Although actually I see your logic on that one.)

As for me, I turned over too many pages in my booklet of ‘O’ Level history questions and accidentally sat my exam on the wrong period of time.  Note the word “accidentally”.  But I recently heard of one of the twins’ contemporaries doing that deliberately because he had done so little revision that he actually thought he stood a better chance on the other stuff.

Oh, and once midway through an exam, my hair uncoiled with force and shot a large plastic clip across the room onto the desk of a middle-aged man who must have been an external candidate.  Tense? Me?

 

Drolls and Weirds – "How did those men lose their eyes?"-  Read chapter 7 of my story of love and mystery set in Cornwall by clicking here. Or read from the start.

 

Sandwich

When they excavate Roman skeletons, they can see immediately which were manual workers from the enlarged muscle attachment areas on their bones.  This one pushed heavy carts, that one lifted sacks.

What I want to know is, does sandwich-making leave its mark?

Will Tony Robinson one day be shaking his head over my sad old skeleton as some expert tells him “Notice the spatulate hands and the enlarged shoulder from cutting bread and cheese. This woman clearly made over a thousand packed lunches and picnics every year for fifteen years.”

I went through a period of rebellion where I just bought bread with cheese and tomatoes baked onto it.  I’m not sure the kids liked it – one of them said something that sounded like “Focaccia.”

I had a patch of experimentation – pitta pockets and tortilla wraps.  Things fell out.

So basically, it has come down to two slices of bread with protein between them. 

At my height, with three growing teens, I was buttering ten slices of bread a day.

But next week is the last week of the twins’ school days and my last week of sandwich making. 

How will I cope? 

Perhaps Nigel will wake in the night to find that I have sleep-walked to the kitchen and am making a pile of phantom sandwiches.

 

Remember:  let me have your stupid exam experience story.

Add a comment to this post or email me at My Moon-Shot .

 

 

Drolls and Weirds – "The mine is how we make our money."-  Read chapter 6 of my story of love and mystery set in Cornwall by clicking here. Or read from the start.

 

What not to do in Exams

Thinking to be helpful, and provide a humorous list of “Don’ts”, I have been asking my friends of all ages what the most stupid thing they ever did in an exam was.  I can only conclude that when you do something stupid in an exam, it is so traumatic that you completely block it out, as I haven’t had the many and varied responses I hoped for.

The best was when I asked the question in a social gathering where there were several graduates from prestigious universities.  They tried to think of something stupid.  They really did, sitting there with what I can only describe as a constipated expression.  But nothing would come – they had never done anything stupid in an exam. 

And that, my friend, is how they got to a pestigious university.

Steve magnanimously offered  - “I didn’t turn over the paper.” 

Thanks, Steve.

So here is my current, state of the art advice to all those students taking AS, A2 and degree exams:

Make sure you turn over the paper.

I’m sure we can do better than this: let me have your stupid exam story.

Add a comment to this post or email me at My Moon-Shot .

 

Drolls and Weirds – Winning gold from spriggans -  Read chapter 5 of my story of love and mystery set in Cornwall by clicking here. Or read from the start.

The Final Final

Last night, when we rang Pascoe there was a great deal of rowdiness going on.  Apparently there were fifteen people at his place getting ready to go out.  From the state of the girl who snatched Pascoe’s phone off him and burbled to us, I wasn’t even sure they would make it to the door.

“Nice to meet you too, Miss….Er..” I bade her farewell as Pascoe wrestled the phone back.

The occasion – the end of final exams.  For the biologists at UEA, their degree is complete!

“Yes,” said Pascoe grimly, “People are writing their addresses on their arms before they go out tonight.”

It didn’t seem so long ago that I was writing our address on the children’s arms for not dissimilar reasons.   I was not a very good mother of young children – easily distracted - and found that the children were returned to me more quickly if I wrote my mobile phone number on them.  I have had children returned from:

The top of a mountain in the Lake District,

A beach a kilometre away from where we last saw him,

A lake warmed by hot springs (going under for the third time),

A campsite, at night, at a festival of twenty thousand people,

IKEA’s soft furnishings department.

Come to think of it, all those instances were the same child – Perran, usually returned by a kindly lady, and once, on the drowning occasion, by an enormous German man.

So this morning I texted and said I hoped Pascoe didn’t have a hangover.  But he was bright and alert - all he had drunk was tea and water.  Let’s hope that when Perran, one day, finishes his finals, he gets home safely too.

 

Drolls and Weirds - Fetching water or gold?  Read chapter 4 of my story of love and mystery set in Cornwall by clicking here. Or read from the start.

Tattoo

Perran and Carenza are trying to make the baked potatoes I have served them look enticing.  They are failing.

“Adam says he’s gonna go back and have his apostrophe put in.”

“Shouldn’t hurt too much”

Me: “How can punctuation cause pain?”

“The tattooist left out the apostrophe.”

So we have tattoos now.

“Left the apostrophe out of what?”

“It’s a song lyric – ‘Hold on forever because that’s our final dedication.’”

“Blimey – that sounds like a big tattoo.”

“Yeah – everybody’s getting them – lots this week.”

One girl has a magpie on her ribs, another three monkeys. One has Arab script down her spine. A boy has a lengthy motto on his biceps.

I have mixed feelings – sometimes tattoos make me want to shout “Bravo!”   Sometimes they make me wonder whether huge laser tattoo removal fees are going to have to be added to that student loan debt.  Generally I’m more ‘comfortable’ with piercings as they heal up (more or less) when you don’t want them any more.

Cautiously, I ask, “You don’t, um, fancy a tattoo then, either of you?”

“Already got one. On my bum!” replies Carenza, then quickly, “Joking, Mum!”

Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.

 

 

Drolls and Weirds - What was it that Sarah's grandfather saw, that moonlit night in the dunes.  Read chapter 3 of my romance set in Cornwall by clicking here. Or read from the start.

Dan’s Top Tips on Accommodation (Dan is our friend at Hull University) – Guest Blog

Some places have more or less dedicated buses. In my first year local buses started 3 times an hour from the car park.  How much will a bus cost? I had an annual pass that was over £200. That's equivalent to at least an extra £5 on the weekly rent.
The biggest problem I've had with facilities is fridge and freezer space, followed by sinks.
Consider proximity to shops. It's 30 minutes walk if I go to the local small shop, and shopping at the really big supermarkets is a bus job.  

Sound proofing is essential. One issue you didn't touch on - sex. Students seem to have a lot of sex, or at least my neighbour last year did. I don't think he ever realised how thin the walls were, but we did.  Where I am now is better, although with windows open you can still get to know your neighbours’ habits very well.

I've found an en-suite useful. We do get the cleaner in once a week. Even if we didn't, I would still think an en suite was worth it for the privacy.
Storage is crucial. My room is so much more cluttered than it need be, because there aren't any cupboards.

Finally, on holidays, moving out is a real pain – try and find somewhere you don’t have to.

 

Drolls and Weirds - Robert had heard stories of beautiful fairy children reared by humans - they were called changelings - But of course, he did not believe in them. Read chapter 2 of my story of love and mystery set in Cornwall by clicking here.  Or read from the start.

 

Eighteen

For the last year or two, there has been a steady stream of fiftieth birthdays amongst my friends.  Bravely we have celebrated and reassured one another of our maturity and experience.

Even so, when I hear of somebody turning eighteen I breathe a sigh of quiet envy.  They are standing on the dewy brink of life with a thousand possibilities shimmering before them.

Only now, just for the next month or so, I can find it in my heart to sympathise with those of Perran and Carenza’s friends marking their eighteenth birthdays.  The exam period is upon us.  A2s start the week after next, but re-takes of AS exams are with us now. Even the more last-minute students are beginning to buckle down now – not a conducive atmosphere for birthday dancin’ and drinkin’.  Presumably, for the unfortunates who are just turning eighteen, their sixteenth birthdays clashed with GSEs and their seventeenth with ASs. 

My compassion though has narrow limits – guys, hold on to the fact that once the exams are finally over you and all your friends will have boundless and unsurpassed celebrations stretching into the blazing blue summer.  You will only be eighteen once, and it is this summer, your summer.

 

DROLLS AND WEIRDS is finally here.  Read chapter 1 of my story of love and mystery set in West Cornwall by clicking here.