Two Fridays ago, in sympathy with the 11-year-olds of T&T, who, three weeks ago, sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination, one morning of their childhood that decides whether they spend the next five years in a prestige school or one of hard knocks, I began my own 51-Plus exam. Using a Guardian practice test, I failed the maths and, last week, the "Language Arts" (which I might have passed had it been "English").Today, I will attempt the creative writing segment (which used to be "the essay").
This year, children did not write a single essay in the exam. Instead, and it's probably a good thing, they were graded on several essays written over all three school terms, an approach that allowed their assessment as inadequate to be spread over nine months, thereby gradually lowering their self-esteem over the whole school year instead of having it plunge over the precipice on a single morning.In these 51-Plus exam columns, I normally combine all the essay topics into one, or there would be no challenge for someone who's written "essays" professionally for the last quarter-century. Just setting out the many topics, though, would use up half our space. So, from a long list I got from an SEA child-age parent (thanks, Toodie), I've chosen three almost at random. (I confess a bias towards potential comedy.)