Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Deeply embarrassed

Truly madly deeply embarrassed; the typo in the previous post has made me so ashamed and conjured up Mr. Coule my primary school teacher, leather strap (government issue) in hand ready to belt out any mistaken apostrophe. So, I am not editing the title as it will sit there as a reminder to always, always check my posts before posting.
Cavalier Scot that I am, I don't always check. So do I do a spellcheck? But how is a computer, or programmers, to know how to spell Burns?
For that errant apostrophe, I humbly apologise.

Which leads me to the next topic. As I was researching material for book 5 --The Low Road --I was remembering the exams we sat at the end of primary school. Known as the Eleven Plus, these exams would decide if a select few would make it to the Academy ( a grammar school in England).
I passed, and my education at Inverness Royal Academy was excellent if a trifle marred by a sadistic Latin master.
On the internet I found a sample 11+ exam paper. The question is, would I pass today?
Now bearing in mind this was a timed exam for eleven year olds, naturally I thought I would sail through. Blimey, it was really hard!

Is it that nowadays education places less emphasis on grammar? Or on times tables - if these are still taught? Or perhaps the Scottish education system, which we boast is  more thorough than other countries, really is better? Don't know. But I do know that many from the academy system would be in all sorts of trouble had we made the obvious mistake with the apostrophe that I made in the previous post.
"Hold out you hand girl!" And I would receive six of the best.

Aa' the best.

PS. The essay component of the 11+ was tough. You had to write a longish original essay on a completely boring topic e.g. My School Holidays, in a short period of time. That was the section of the exam that I loved, and excelled at. So why oh why I didn't discover writing until I was in my sixties I'll never know.



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I'd love to hear from you, can't promise to get back to you, but will promise to try to answer questions ...except about typos --teh bane of my life.
Aa' the best.