The trap-for-heffalumps

[rekraft]

Answer any three questions in Section B. Answer any three questions in Section C. Then answer as many questions as possible from all three sections, bearing in mind that questions in Section A carry fewer marks than questions in either of the other two sections.In the words of Janice Scott, no less, Lawrie's Prosser was a "useful gimmick". How

Comments

[rosathome]

Completely believable. I was only surprised that none of the teachers at my school had thought of it first.

[rekraft]

Hm. Even so, it doesn't seem to have been a done thing at Kingscote.

[sarahkbee]

Definitely believable. Our fourth year exam for maths had a diagram question worth 10% on the very back sheet of the paper; about a quarter of the class missed it and were fed up. Our teacher's response was that we'd know to check the back page in future and better fourth year exams than O levels. Even though it didn't catch as many heffalumps as Kingscote's trap, it certainly did the trick for us!

[rekraft]

I remember one exam with a fiendishly difficult question not worth many marks near the beginning of the paper, which caught a surprising number of people who didn't think to skip it. But I don't think I've ever come across an exam in which the rules were changed as significantly as the heffalumps trap!

[ooxc]

Absolutely believable that, in the 1950s, we were tested in this way
"Always read through the entire paper before you start."
There was almost always a catch about how the marks were distributed.

[nineveh_uk]

First thing I remember being taught about taking exams was "Always read the whole paper. You never know that the last question won't read 'This is the only question that carries any marks'". State education, 80s and 90s.

[nzraya]

Ditto this. I also set such an exam (mine said at the end "If you have answered question 44, ten points will be deducted," or something along those lines) to inattentive first-year university students in the late nineties. Their cries of foul suggested that they had not had "Always read through the entire exam first" drummed into them in secondary school the way I had.

[byslantedlight]

Been there, done that (1980s/1990s) - rejoiced to the howls of dismay that read the paper that much more carefully in the real exam... *g* Although I wasn't teaching in a school like Laurie's, so... but does that really make a difference?

ETA - posh school in Australia, early 1980s, I remember it being drummed into us to read the whole paper before answering anything...