Exams have been in the news a lot lately. They've even loomed large in my recent scribblings. I was thinking about the different ways that exams can be written. The same content can be put in simple ways, or complicated ways. And the same "problem" can be put into different scenarios. On top of that, some questions just require you to regurgitate something you've learned, like the capital city of Ecuador ... but with others you might have to DO something with it, such as solving an equation or interpreting a graph, or writing two different interpretations of the same poem. It all depends on the setter. And it can make a lot of difference to the outcome. You can even write 2 x 2 in much more complicated and obscure ways ! [1] What is the product of the cube root of 8 and the 12th root of 4096 ? ..or you can get deliberately tricky trappy questions ... [2] If the temperature in your house goes from 5 degrees 10 degrees, should you feel twice as warm ? ... or ones where you might well trot out the obvious, but wrong, answer ... [3] What's that stuff that you can see coming out of the spout of a boiling kettle ? But what's all that got to do with birding ? Well, many "bird clubs" have exams ...... and I've asked you tricky questions too... ... and if you don't believe it ....... ...... 148-bird-related-awkward-questions-73.html 149-bird-related-awkward-questions-7.html 152-top-questions-for-top-birders-17.html 155-quiz-update.html 157-another-blasted-quiz-update.html -190-flintshire-bid-clubs-latest-exam-results.html But let's get down to business ..... a "real" exam ... well, an imagined real one anyway ... So, here's how I think an Eric Hardy exam would have looked ..... don't expect any full stops from him ! And nary a comma in sight..... Ready ... steady .... GO ! ...hang on a minute while I get my 7-ton-trenchcoat off and get settled in the bus shelter none of those fancy jumped-up seminar rooms for me right then first question how come all those TV so-called "naturalists" tell us there's a lifetime of interest in a cottage garden and then they bog off to South America to get loads of ticks and kudos and on top of that they get a fortune from the programmes they make about it all come on get scribbling next question coming up what about all this twitching is it ruining birding in my day anyone who ventured out of their street would be knocked unconscious robbed of all their possessions and thrown into the local pond and talking of ponds next question how many life-forms do you reckon there are in your local pond get writing don't forget their latin names as well question 4 how come some species are sexually dimorphic and yet their close congeners aren't that's something to think about and I covered it thoroughly in one of my recent articles in the Liverpool Echo so you've no excuse there but here's another one for you sit up at the back there you lazy middle-class layabouts let's see what you know about allopreening that should keep you busy for a bit even though I've started with the easy stuff so lets get on with it right then and by the way there's going to be none of that teacher-assessed grades for you lot this is a real exam and you'll get what you deserve and I don't mean that in a good way OK so now you've got an essay to write explaining why big birds tend to live longer than small ones and once you've got that sorted out put both sides of the debate about whether birding is a religion and come to some useful conclusion if you've got the time in between parading around waving placards about nonsensical social problems and spending all night at raves or "glasto" whatever that is and now my final question which I've already talked about in five of my award-winning Radio Liverpool programmes so you should know lots about it already so scurry off back to your luxury Student Accommodation which didn't exist back in my day when we mostly lived in tents but now they're all en-suite with picture windows and bookshelves and taps and all that sort of delux upper-middle-class jumped-up-status-signalling anyway I want a 2000 word essay about where evolutionary theory would be right now if Darwin had never gone to the Galapagos Islands and I expect to see you back here at the bus stop with your answers if you're up to it which you probably aren't with your namby-pamby coddled lifestyle and your luxury flats and your parents doing it all for you anyway ( at this point he jumped onto a passing bus and was whisked into the distance) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There's a bus right at the start of this one .... Eric would approve .....
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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