The 25 best exam blunders......

We all have to fail sometimes. But there's something glorious about failing with style.

A new book, F in exams: the best test paper blunders gives some great examples of exam answers from the most clueless - and inventive - of students. Some are very nearly right ("What happens to your body when taking a breath? Your chest gets bigger"), but some are very wrong indeed (Is the moon or the sun more important? The moon gives us sight at night when we need it. The sun only provides light in the day when we don't. Therefore the moon is more important). Laugh...and weep for the state of education!

1) Classical Studies
Question: Name one of the early Romans' greatest achievements.
Answer: Learning to speak Latin

2) Biology
Question: What is a fibula?
Answer: A little lie

3) General Studies
Question: Jeff has been asked to collect data about the amount of television his friends watch. Think of an appropriate question he could ask them.
Answer: How much TV do you watch?

4) Classical Studies
Question: What were the circumstances of Julius Caesar's death?
Answer: Suspicious ones

5) Biology
Question: Give an example of a smoking-related disease
Answer: Early death

6) Geography
Question: What are the Pyramids?
Answer: The Pyramids are a large mountain range which splits France and Spain

7) Biology
Question: What is a plasmid?
Answer: A high definition television

8) English
Question: In Pride and Prejudice, at what moment does Elizabeth Bennet realise her true feelings for Mr Darcy?
Answer: When she sees him coming out of the lake.

9) Geography
Question: What do we call a person forced to leave their home perhaps by a natural disaster or war, without having another home to go to.
Answer: Homeless

10) Religious Studies
Question: Christians only have one spouse, what is this called?
Answer: Monotony

11) Biology
Question: In the Hawaiian Islands, there are around 500 different species of fruit fly. Give a reason for this
Answer: There are approximately 500 varieties of fruit

12) Physics
Question: Name an environmental side effect of burning fossil fuels
Answer: Fire

13) Geography
Question: Define the term "intensive farming".
Answer: It is when a farmer never has a day off.

14) Maths
Question: Change 7/8 to a decimal
Answer: 7.8

15) Geography
Question: What does the term "lava" mean?
Answer: A pre-pubescent caterpillar

16) General Studies
Question: Redundancy is often an unpleasant and unexpected event in someone's life. Give two examples of unexpected life events.
Answer: 1) death 2) Reincarnation

17) History
Question: What was introduced in the Children's Charter of 1908?
Answer: Children

18) Business Studies
Question: Explain the word "wholesaler".
Answer: Someone who sells you whole items - eg, a whole cake

19) Geography
Question: The race of people known as Malays come from which country?
Answer: Malaria

20) Geography
Question:What artificial waterway runs between the Mediterranean and Red Seas?
Answer: The Sewage Canal

21) Geography
Question: Name one famous Greek landmark
Answer: The most famous Greek landmark is the Apocalypse

22) Maths
Question: Expand 2 (x + y)
Answer: 2 ( x + y )
2 (  x  +  y  )
2 (   x    +    y   )

23) Business Studies
Question: Assess Fashion House pls's choice to locate its factory near Birmingham. Is Birmingham the right location for this type of business?
Answer: No. People from Birmingham aren't very fashionable.

24) History
Question: Where was the American Declaration of Independence signed?
Answer: At the bottom.

25) History
Question: What did Mahatma Gandhi and Genghis Khan have in common?
Answer: Unusual names.

Thanks to Summersdale publishing.

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The worst teachers in the movies

The best characters from Grange Hill.

Comments

[Manc]

Love the answer about Brummies. Spot on...

[Scott Benowitz]

Technincally speaking, I think that the answer which was given to question# 5 might actually be sadly enough quite correct-

[David Legg]

Question: What did Mahatma Gandhi and Genghis Khan have in common?
Answer: Unusual names.

S'obvious: They were both blokes.

[j]

I think they are wonderful. I think no 20 is becoming ever more true..

[Dummy]

Anyone care to explain whats wrong with the answer for Q3?

[L]

Early death is not a disease (like say lung cancer or emphysema).

[anon]

When presented with an O level maths question about the volume of a normal swimming pool with shallow and deep end..I gave up and wrote 'why not rebuild the pool to be same depth for the whole length?'

[Helen]

The answers are great - it's the questions that are dumb.

[Fred]

I think No 16 is written by someone with a sense of humour

[Asher]

This isn't a comment on the state of our education system. It's a state of our chain letters. This stuffs almost if not all all made up and forwarded around between friends, office mates, and teachers.

[j]

Asher, I agree. They're just too good and witty.

[Bill Smith]

Yet another reason to homeschool your children. Sending your kids to a government school is child abuse.

[Dave]

One of my classmates wrote, in an exam, that 'Sir Francis Drake circumcised the World with a 40-foot clipper'...

[Tina]

I AGREE with other poster re: number 3 -- the answer sounds logical to me!

[j]

the answer to no 3- of course its logical, but the question is designed to see if you can design a scientifically valid test. So asking "how much" is too vague and subjective, you should define the time spent, the nature of watching (concentrating or surfing?) and what we mean by TV (telly? iPlayer? Sky? taped or live?)

see? (gosh I'm sad...)

[Bernie]

Hmmmm....I may be a dumb American, but what did Genghis Khan and Ghandi have in common?

[Kouma]

Nobody noticed that the list is of 25 questions, yet the URL says 20?

[CADpunk]

i think all the answers that were given to these questions must have been by some dumb ass kids.. especially question 23, sounds like some up-tight prissy girl that thinks like paris hilton came up with that one, freaking sad if you ask me.."thats hot".. seriously look what our future holds with answers like these.. were in for some serious shit!!

[cody]

CADPUNK and BILL SMITH scare the living shnikey out of me. Instead of laughing at this joke they want me to believe the sky is falling.

I know our children is learning.

[Tamra]

As to #8, I suppose the answer is wrong...but I'd put that on my test any day :D.

[Mark]

#1 and #3 are both legitimate answers. . . .

Granted, #1 isn't phrased very well, but language is a HUGE advancement for a civilization. Technically, the Romans must have spoken something before Latin, so I'd consider it a perfectly valid answer.

#3 is a perfectly good answer. Question 3 asks about the AMOUNT - the QUANTITY of TV that people watch. It asks for the time they watch, not information describing what they watch. In a way, it is a very specific question regarding only one measured characteristic - time.

[whimsey]

Bernie, what Ghenghis Khan and Mahatma Ghandi probably had in common was their DNA! I read somewhere that a third of people in Asia/Europe are descended from ol' Ghenghis (ie, what's the point of being the Scource of Heaven if you don't get to bonk every female in every city you conquer?!!!!)

[David Whitehead]

My favourite essay quote from a Lit student in Singapore was - "Hamlet stabbed Polonius in the arras".

[Dan]

In public school coercion in America, I have concluded that most will learn the most on thier own- by experience or books without pictures.

[Dodgy Geezer]

"Technincally speaking, I think that the answer which was given to question# 5 might actually be sadly enough quite correct-"

Only if you define all smokers who die as dying from a smoking-related cause. Amazingly, research papers have counted ALL early deaths of smokers, including those from traffic accidents, as evidence of the danger of cigarettes, and smokers' deaths from all causes at 90+ are still considered as 'early...

[Tim Reynolds]

My wife taught Bio 101 in the 70's and the first test of the year asked "Name an organic compuond." Answer "Granola"

16) General Studies
Question: Redundancy is often an unpleasant and unexpected event in someone's life. Give two examples of unexpected life events.
Answer: 3) pregnancy

[Peter Cressall]

My conclusions are that a sense of humour is alive and kicking in Britain's schools, and that your headline writer does not know that "invite" is a verb, not a noun.

[AK]

I remember finishing an English Lit paper with the line 'its no wonder he didn't have any friends'. Studying Keats that was *shudder*

[//]

I love how people are jumping on the opportunity by giving the "correct" answers to the questions - come on folks. #23 has to be the favourite...

[Gerard Denvir]

When I was a child I wrote that Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak.

[Joe]

Several classics: The French national anthem is The Mayonaise, and Britain has a constitutional mockery.

[Sumoking]

*weeps*

Teachers, eh?

Loathe them or ignore them, they're utterly khunting useless.

[Dr Jones]

In an Oxford Entry examination, the following was asked:
Q-Is this a question?
To which the answer was naturally given: 'Is this the answer?
The applicant was admitted!

[Louisa]

In my GCSE Music mock, in response to a question asking me to describe the quality of a piece (I can't remember which one it was now) I wrote 'It is ethereal and slightly side'. Similarly, in a Year 8 Science exam I remember one of my friends answering the question 'Who was Isaac Newton' with 'Isaac Newton invented gravity'. This was at a high-ranking grammar school! Attack teachers all you like - these were simple slips of the mind. Every student has their off-day. At least it makes for good entertainment! :)