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1963
After the Second World War, Britain’s education system suffered a setback when a child’s future depended on the result of the Eleven-plus exam. Success meant a place in a grammar school, with the prospect of higher education. Failure meant relegation to a Secondary Modern school, stifling the prospects of late developers.
Here’s a sample question from the Eleven-plus exam. Did you/would you pass the exam?
A train leaves London at 10.30am and arrives in Birmingham at 12.40pm. It stopped from 12.10pm to 12.20pm at Coventry, which is 100 miles from London. It travelled throughout at the same speed. Find the distance from London to Birmingham.
I received 100% for a science exam. At that moment, I lost all faith in the exam system because I knew that I only had, at best, a 75% understanding of the subject. The questions on the day favoured my knowledge. With another set of questions, I would have received a much lower grade.
@HannahHowe 120 miles? Every minute is one mile travelled, subtract the ten-minute stop.
@HannahHowe My answer is that it couldn't have travelled at the same speed throughout, since it stopped in Coventry, which necessarily involves deceleration. That kind of answers got me in trouble at school but served me well in later life.
@HannahHowe
I like that question- not too complicated but still needs a bit of logic to work it out.
I think I remember that question
@HannahHowe I was fortunate - I did well in the exam. It always seemed to me to be a lottery that decided so much about your future path in life. And yes, if it takes 100 minutes to do the 100 miles from London to Birmingham then it will cover 120 miles in 120 minutes. Assuming as others have said that it can stop and start instantaneously.
We should grade chickens, not children (of any age)
@HannahHowe I’m glad the grammar school shite pretty much died out in Scotland. I think it’s bad enough that kids get constantly told failure at 16 or 18 exams will mess up their whole life, let alone when they are not even teenagers yet.