Friday, March 29, 2024

BC’S B’DOS: 11-Plus minus

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Unless you have a kid whose future as either company president or cocaine paro was sealed last Tuesday, you’ve probably forgotten the 11-Plus exam stress; I propose to jog your memory by attempting it over three Mondays, starting today, with the maths paper (from 2009).
Add 24 + 63. The usual easy start so the attention deficit disorder children (aka “boys”) can get at least one mark.
2. Divide 69 by 3. Is it me, or has the 11-Plus suddenly gone prurient? In any case, without wanting to annoy the LGBTI crowd, surely 69 can only be divided by two!
3. Write in figures: One thousand and nine. Do kids who write, 109 get marked Bursary at once? If so, it’s closer to “Writhe in figures”. Skip ahead.
22. Would you please remember to put the #$%$#@# garbage out? Oh, wait, that’s a note from my wife.
23. Write 8/3 as a mixed number. There might be the odd hottie like Alex Jordan, Rihanna or my wife’s cousins, but they add up to 4/300K, not 8/3 mixed numbers in Barbados; or could the answer be “Egyptian Jew”, perhaps? Those two words certainly seem to mix numbers nowadays.
24. Pupils earn $15 for every hundred poppies sold and $0.10 each for every poppie between one and 99. How much did Krystal earn from selling 255 poppies?
Why would anyone buy a puppy when they can find plenty dogs abandoned in Ballantyne? Oh, wait, poppies! Those WWII memorial paper flowers! Well, Krystal didn’t earn much because she was competing with the new scratch lottery. Boom!
28. Kyle spent 1/3 of his allowance and had $13 left. How much was Kyle’s allowance? Hmmm. Three poppies? An Egyptian Jew? Too little in the first place? Go straight to the next page. No, wait, that’s an instruction to the 11-Plus students, not you; you’d probably only find a letter complaining I’m not prayerful enough anyway.
32. There are 220 pupils in a school; 25 per cent are boys. How many boys are in the school? Depends on the school. If it’s The Alexandra School, the answer is “None. There aren’t any teachers so what’s the point?”
If it’s St Leonard’s, the answer is “All the boys better be in school, or they’ll be flogged at the gate!”
If it’s UWI, it’s a misprint; there are far more women to men there than just three in every four.
48. Paul wrote five tests marked out of 200, average 60 per cent. Paul then scored 40/50. What is his new average? Higher than the entire West Indies batting aggregate minus Shiv Chanderpaul.
52. Sasha has eight five and ten cent pieces totalling 65 cents. How many are five cent pieces? Ask the Guyanese prophetess sent by God as “revealed” (not “reported”) on Mornin’ Barbados. If ever in doubt about anything in Barbados or the 11-Plus, just trust God; even if no one can work out the arithmetic that allows three of Him in one.
That’s enough maths. Next week we fail English.

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