Well well! This morning we got the astonishing and surprising(?)(not!) news that somebody has, for the 3rd year running, leaked some of the questions for an A level maths exam! And the answers as well. I find this deeply disappointing. You see, I would like to think that all those maths students would be "doing" maths because they liked doing maths. After all, they had a choice. They could have done Geography ( Geography is going places) or Art ( Easel'y mastered) or History ( A thing of the past) or even General Studies ( er?)... But they chose Maths. But apparently, some of them don't actually want to "do" it. But they DO want to pass the exam. Because ...er ..... they want to go to University. And the University accepts them because they have shown that they are good at it. But if they have simply copied the answers for £70, they might well not be. But strangely, a huge proportion of those students seem to get A's these days. Something doesn't seem right there. I don't think people have got any brighter over the last 30 years. You can't help wondering if that might be the cause of a lot of this "stress" that, it seems, vast numbers of students now suffer from. hold on a minute ..... BUT WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH BIRD-SPOTTING ? Well, for a start, we set ourselves "exams" all the time. We're out there ID-ing dinky dodgers 3 miles up going "squeeeeee" or "twink" as a matter of course. Of course. Other utterances are available. Every day, every minute, we're being tested by the very subject matter we are involved with... ...elusive hoodwinks deep inside bushes .... raptors flying 2000 metres above us and 4 miles away .... warblers which sound very much like other warblers warbling..... a long-tailed tit/bearded tit "hybrid" that we'd love to think was a penduline tit, 749 metres away and 4 feet inside a reedbed. A flock of 11 skuas whizzing 30 cm above the windswept waves banking and shearing about 80 miles away in a force 8 whoosher at 6 am. We've all been there. That's what we do .... because, oddly enough, we BLOODY WELL WANT TO. And on top of that, there have been suggestions of actual " Birding Exams" set by Top Birders .... although I suspect that each "organisation" will have their own style ... oh yes. ( That's an idea and a ½ ... I'll get writing a "sample paper" for each one.) And as my loyal readers will know, I have leaked (after the actual exam of course) an actual " Flintshire Bird Club" exam. I did it to "reveal" a certain "hint" of "dumbing down" ...... here, if I can find it, is the link to it .... aha ...here it is ..... 190-a-leaked-flintshire-bird-club-exam-paper.html ..and this is why I leaked it .... -190-flintshire-bid-clubs-latest-exam-results.html OK ..what we need now is a real blast of a song that blows away all that cynical, nit-picking stuff I've been tripetapping ..... I just know that "Toi et moi" will love it ... it will blow away all the webcobs ...
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
|