Selection of Exam HowlersThese are apparently taken from ll-year old's exam papers ...Breaking the newsGCSE Exam howlersLetter from Scout CampA compendium of historyA Child's Point Of ViewTrain SetExam MetaphorsKids Letters to God
Selection of Exam Howlers
These are apparently taken from ll-year old's exam papers ...
Breaking the news
GCSE Exam howlers
Letter from Scout Camp
A compendium of history
A Child's Point Of View
Train Set
Exam Metaphors
Kids Letters to God
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Next Page
Big Joke List
Falling educational standards or rising standards of wit? Every year teachers at a northern comprehensive school collect, for staff room amusement, the most notable howlers made by children in school exams.
Here is a selection from the 1987 edition:
Q. What is an animal with a backbone called?
A. A vibrator.
Q. How can people conserve the environment?
A. Shoot trespassers.
Q. Why can a bird sit on a high voltage cable without getting an
electric shock?
A. The bird's feet are coated with rubber.
Q. Name the Peace Treaty which settled the war in 1919.
A. EEC.
Q. What does the sickle on the Russian flag stand for?
A. Chopping peoples' heads off.
Q. State one change in boys at puberty.
A. There vice deepens.
Q. What is migration?
A. It is a headache that birds get when they fly south for the
winter.
Q. Write down some way in which radioactive materials can be
useful to human beings.
A. Atomic bombs.
The pelvis protects the gentiles.
My first memory was when my nana used to carry me down the garden to look at the flowers. Then she would sit me on a plate of egg and chips.
Sir Francis Drake played with his bowels while the Armada sailed up the channel.
Magellan circumcised the world in his 40-foot clipper.
Joan of Arc was condomed to death.
An Arab is a man with a turbine on his head.
North Sea gas has been found in Morecambe Bay.
The light is focused on to the rectum at the back of the eye by the lens.
Jenny is a clever girl and wants to go into bonking.
James I's eyes were always wandering around. His long thin beard helps him to do this.
Man is only a nackered ape.
Exams do put enormus stains on you.
Dear Mum and Dad,
It has now been three months since I left for college. I have been Remiss in writing and I am very sorry for the thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up-to-date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not going to read any further unless you are sitting down. Okay? Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire shortly after my arrival are pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital, and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day.
Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump were witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt-out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. Its really a basement room, but its kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven't set the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show.
Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has some minor infection which prevents us from passing the pre-marital blood test and I carelessly caught it from him. this will clear up with the penicillin injections I am now taking daily. I know you will welcome him into the family with open arms. He is kind and although not well educated, he is ambitious.
Although he is of a different race and religion than ours, I know your oft-expressed tolerance will not permit you to be bothered by the fact that his skin colour is somewhat different than ours. I am sure that you will love him as I do. His family background is good too, for I am told that his father is an important engineer for the sanitation department he works for. Although they say he runs his office from his truck.
Now that I have brought you up-to-date, folks, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or a skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I do not have syphilis, and there is no schwartze in my life.
However, I am getting a "D" in history and an "F" in science, ...and I wanted you to see those marks in the proper perspective.
Your loving daughter,
Manjula
The following questions and answers were collated from last year's GCSE. Some students must think that, if you don't know an answer, you might get some marks by making the poor examiners smile.
English
Technology
History
R. I.
Geography
Biology
Sociology
Medical
Psychology
Botany
Chemistry
Physics
Dear Mum,
Our scoutmaster told us to write to our parents in case you saw the storm and flood on TV and are worried.
We are OK.
Only one of our tents and two sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up in the mountains looking for Charlie when it happened. Oh yes, please call Charlie's mother and tell her he is OK. He can't write because of the plaster cast on his arm.
I got to ride in one of the mountain rescue LandRovers. I liked that. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightning. Walter, our scoutmaster, got mad at Charlie for going on a walk alone without telling anyone. Charlie said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so our scoutmaster probably didn't hear him.
Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up? The wet wood didn't burn, but one of the tents did. Also some of our clothes. James is going to look weird until his hair grows back.
We will be home next Saturday if scoutmaster Walter gets the car fixed. It wasn't his fault about it crashing. The brakes worked OK when we left. Scoutmaster Walter said that with a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why he can't get insurance. We think it's a super car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot, he lets us ride in the trailer because it gets pretty hot with 10 people in a car. We took turns riding in the trailer until the police stopped and talked to us. Scoutmaster Walter certainly knows how to talk to the police.
So don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive on the mountain roads where there isn't any traffic. It's pretty scary because the road is narrow and steep and all we ever see up there are logging trucks.
This morning we were diving off the rocks and swimming in the lake. Scoutmaster Walter wouldn't let me because I can't swim, and Charlie was afraid he would sink because of his plaster cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake.
It was great. The water was rough and going up and down and there were lots of trees rushing past from the flood. Scoutmaster Walter isn't crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad about us not having life jackets.
He has to spend a lot of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble.
Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When David dived in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works.
Pete and I were sick because of the blood and threw up, but scoutmaster Walter said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick that way with food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and became our scoutmaster.
He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time in prison. By the way, what is a paedophile?
I have to go now.
We are going to town to post our letters and buy cartridges for the gun.
Don't worry about anything.
We are fine.
Love, Chris
Those who forget history--and the English language--may be condemned to mangle both. Historian Anders Henriksson, a five year veteran of the university classroom, has faithfully recorded his freshman students' more striking insights into European history. Possibly as an act of vengeance, Henriksson has assembled these fractured fragments into a chronological narrative from the Middle Ages to the present.
During the Middle Ages, everyone was middle aged. Church and state were co-operated. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords, and surfs. After a revival of infantile commerce, merchants appeared. Those roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organizing big fairies in the countryside. The Crusades were expeditions by Christians who were seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town" of Christ) from the Islams.
In the 1400 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of ycowls arose. Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. It was spread from port to port by inflected rats. The plague also helped the emergence of English as the national language of England, France, and Italy.
The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renesance bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being. Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world, thanks to northern Europe. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Europe was full of incredable churches with great art bulging out of their doors. Renaisance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike.
The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented that tithes were going to the pope, thus enriching Catholic coiffures. The popes were usually Catholic. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.
After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. If the Spanish could gain the Netherlands they would have a stronghold throughout northern Europe that would include Italy, Burgangy, central Europe and India thus surrounding France. The German Emperor's lower passage was blocked by the French for years and years.
Louis XIV became King of the Sun. He gave people food and artillery. If he didn't like someone, he sent them to the gallows to row for the rest of their lives. Vauban was the royal minister of flirtation.
In Russia, the 17th century was known as the time of the bounding of the serfs. Russian nobles wore clothes to humor Peter the Great. Peter filled his government with accidental people; orthodox priests became government antennae.
The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble. Philosophers were unknown yet, and the fundamental stake was one of religious tolerance slightly confused with defeatism.
France was in a serious state. Taxation was a great drain on the state budget. The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The revolution catapaulted into Napolean. Napoleon was ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained.
History started in 1815. Industrialization was precipitating in England. Problems were so complexicated that in Paris, out of a population of 1 million people, 2 million able bodies were on the loose.
The middle class was tired and needed a rest. The old order could see the lid holding down new ideas beginning to shake. Among the goals of the chartists were universal suferage and an anal parliment.
A new time zone of national unification roared over the horizon. Founder of the new Italy was Cavour, an intelligent Sardine from the north. Culture formented from its tip to its top. Dramatized were adventures in seduction and abortion. Music reeked with reality. Wagner was master of music, and when he died they labeled his seat "historical."
World War I broke out about 1912-1914. At war people get killed, and then they aren't people any more, but friends. Peace was proclaimed at Versigh, which was attended by General Loid, Primal Minister of England. President Wilson arrived with 14 pointers. In 1917, Lenin revolted Russia.
Germany was displaced after WW1. This gave rise to Hitler, who remilitarized the Rineland over a squirmish between Germany and France. Mooscalini rested his foundations on 8 million bayonets and invaded Hi Lee Salasy. Germany invaded Poland, France invaded Belgium, and Russia invaded everybody. War screeched to an end when a nukleer explosion was dropped on Heroshima. A whole generation had been wipe out, and their forlorne families were left to pick up the peaces.
The last stage is us.
POLICE # 1
While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about six years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, "Are you a cop?" "Yes," I answered and continued writing the report. "My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?" "Yes, that's right," I told her. "Well, then," she said as she extended her foot toward me, "would you please tie my shoe?"
POLICE # 2
It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me. "Is that a dog you got back there?" he asked. "It sure is," I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, "What'd he do?"
ELDERLY
While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my four-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"
DRESS-UP
A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, "Daddy, you shouldn't wear that suit." "And why not, darling?" "You know that it always gives you a headache next morning."
DEATH
While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his five-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: "Glory be unto the Faaaather. .and unto the Sonnn . ...... and into the hole he gooooes."
SCHOOL
A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm just wasting my time," she said to her mother. "I can't read, I can't write - and they won't let me talk!"
BIBLE
A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. "Mama, look what I found", the boy called out. "What have you got there, dear"? With astonishment in the young boy's voice, he answered, "I think it's Adam's underwear!"
A mother was working in the kitchen, listening to her five-year-old son playing with his new electric train in the living room.
She heard the train stop & her son saying,
"All of you bastards who want off, get the hell off now, 'cause this is the last stop! And all of you bastards who are getting on, get your ass in the train, cause we're going down the tracks."
The horrified mother went in & told her son,
"We don't use that kind of language in this house. Now I want you to go to your room & stay there for TWO HOURS. When you come out, you may play with your train, but I want you to use nice language."
Two hours later, the son came out of the bedroom & resumed playing with his train. Soon the train stopped & the mother heard her son say,
"All passengers who are disembarking the train, please remember to take all of your belongings with you. We thank you for travelling with us today & hope your trip was a pleasant one."
She hears the little boy continue, "For those of you just boarding, we ask you to stow all of your hand luggage under your seat. Remember, there is no smoking on the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us today."
As the mother began to smile, the child added,
"For those of you who are pissed off about the TWO HOUR delay, please see the fat bitch in the kitchen."
These are metaphors from actual British GCSE essays
Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on 31p-a-pint night.
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19p.m.at a speed of 35 mph.
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.
Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portion of Family Fortunes.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Glenda Jackson MP in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Robin Cook MP, Leader of the House of Commons, in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the suspension of Keith Vaz MP.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint.
The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.
It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.
She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.
She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.
It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
A Nun asked her class to write notes to God. Here are some they handed in:
Dear God: I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset You made on Tuesday. That was cool.
Dear God: Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You keep the ones You already have?
Dear God: Maybe Cain and Abel would not have killed each other if they had their own rooms. That's what my Mom did for me and my brother.
Dear God: If You watch me in church on Sunday, I'll show You my new shoes.
Dear God: I bet it is very hard to love everyone in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I'm having a hard time loving all of them.
Dear God: In school they told us what You do. Who does it when You are on vacation?
Dear God: Are You really invisible or is it just a trick?
Dear God: Is it true my father won't get into heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house?
Dear God: Did You mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?
Dear God: Who draws the lines around the countries?
Dear God: I went to this wedding and they kissed right in the church. Is that OK?
Dear God: Did You really mean "do unto others as they do unto you"? Because if You did, then I'm going to get my brother good.
Dear God: Thank You for the baby brother, but I think you got confused because what I prayed for was a puppy.
Dear God: Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up.
Dear God: I want to be just like my Daddy when I get big, but not with so much hair all over.
Dear God: You don't have to worry about me; I always look both ways.
Dear God: I think about You sometimes, even when I'm not praying.
Dear God: Of all the people who worked for You, I like Noah and David the best.
Dear God: My brother told me about being born but it doesn't sound right. They're just kidding, aren't they?
Dear God: I would like to live 900 years just like the guy in the Bible.
Dear God: We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school they said You did it. So, I bet he stole Your idea.
I bet you think adults would do much better.
I wonder what God thinks?