"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

I was born in 1944. I passed the 11 Plus and went to a Church
school, which covered a large area. It was also a Secondary
Modern for the local area. The Grammar side had 3 forms, A, B,
& C whilst the Secondary Modern side had two forms, D & E.

After WWII, 'The Bulge' started. By the time I left school,
the fisrt year extended to 1H!

Of course, not long after I left school and started work, the
bulge started to emerge onto the employment market.

Our Group Scoutmaster used to chat to us older boys after
weekly meetings and gave the lads who were on the verge of
leaving school a warning.

He worked for Van den Bergh & Jurgens (part of Unilever) who
manufactured Stork Margerine in the main.

Their apprenticeships were well respected and sought after and
they were now being inundated with applications, so they had
found a devious way of reducing the numbers.

They held an examination for all applicant, each of whom was
provided with:

A sheet of blotting paper;
A rough sheet;
An answer paper and
A question paper.

At the top of the question paper it said "ALL WORKING MUST BE
SHOWN ON THE ANSWER PAPER".

At the end of the exam, every sheet of paper was collected
from each desk. If anything had been scribbled on any piece of
paper other than the answer paper, it was an instant fail.
The answer paper might have been 100% correct but it wan't
even marked.

Reason for failure? 'Cannot obey a simple instruction.'

Which is clearly nonsense.

If at the top of the question paper it had said

"ALL WORKING MUST BE SHOWN AND *ONLY* ON THE ANSWER PAPER"

Then fair enough. But it didn't, did it ?

But as it stands had any of the candidates first done their
workings on the rough sheet, and then copied all them exactly
but more neatly on the answer paper, then they'd have
satisfied the instruction.

In fact they might even have been more satisfactory
candidates. As being able to do rough workings (as was
implied by the provision of the rough sheet) in line
with their thought processes, rather than being slowed down
by the need to be neat, and copying out the workings
afterwards would probably be a far better way of
proceeding.

You won't necesarily choose smart people by setting trick
questions. And it is a trick given the provision of a
blank sheet of paper. All you're doing is bolstering the
ego of the smartarse who came up with the flawed idea,


michael adams

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