Failed Exam Answers
- Categories: International, News
- Date: Nov 19, 2009 23:08 JST
- Tags: Bizarre, Fail, School, Schoolboys, Schoolgirls, UK
A recent book highlights some of the less than reassuring exam answers given by UK schoolchildren.
With apologies to Malaysians…
The UK has long enjoyed neurosis over the dire quality of its public schooling, for good reason it seems. The book is available now.






























Fail
you mean you?
a lot of those were totally hilarious, one of the few things that actually made me laugh in this website.
Agreed, lotsa laughs in there ^^ Some very creative stuff :)
Not to mention some might be done for fun.
Expand 2(x+y)!
lmao, those answer are made up right?
i dun think real Britain are that stupid...
lmao! these are some genius kids!
I! fuckin! LOL'D lololol.
gotta love Mariah Carey
this an answer from a genius kid while bored or something...
Yeah, a lot of very dry humour in here. I love sarcasm :3
MOAR
"Flooding in areas such as the Mississippi may be avoided by placing a number of large dames into the river."
I agree completely. They'll drink the water and everyone else will be safe.
Nice to see the result of UK education are creative kids, with heavy sarcasm... I APPROVE!
But Malaria? WTF?
just apologize to the malays. the rest of us know where we come from :3
/gg to the above comment.
if you put it that way, even malays come from indonesia.
It's Arte's apology to Malaysians that made me laugh in the end.
It is just too much pain to read every single exam paper to find anything useful, so the author decides to answer some questions himself. Well he seems intelligent all right.
That was uber fucked up.
Total LOLage.
True, this goes beyond idiocy into epic genius win.
They should now make 1+1 which equals to 11 Lol
Hope my children becomes this way
Hadrian's garden sure is epic LMAO
@LockCoated But 11=1+1+1!
There is a famous joke among programmers:
"There are 10 types of people - those who know binary, and those who don't."
Google it if you don't have CompSci background.
Actually 1+1 = 11 in binary..
Uh, no. 1,10,11,100,101,110,111,1000 Aren't you glad you did not divulge your identity?
In other words, 1+1=11 is still wrong no matter how you put it.
str(1)+str(1) = 11
not really funny. i know a guy named Petrosyan... this guys r just like he.
How does that make it less funny?
it does. i guarantee it.
Eh, some should've been awarded points for sheer originality, even if the answer wasn't the one that was supposed to be given.
Like the Ghandi, Genghis Khan one.
Outside the box thinking like that should be encouraged.
Although I do disagree with the perception that the analysis of Romeo and his character was faulty. It might be a subjective conclusion, but a valid one when one considers the literary sciences and the latitude it provides for textual analysis and conclusions.
Outside the box thinking is what makes life good.
I disagree with the Romeo part too. That answer could be justified.
*looks for where to buy*
IS THERE AN EBOOK VERSION OF THIS??? must... read... this... NAO!
man these are as fake as they can be. you can clearly see some of them are photoshops
They are scanned from a paperback, it is a given that they look like that.
And this was done by British Children? I actually thought they were smarter than their American counterparts. It's like they had this exam at Springfield Elementary...the most dilapidated school in Missouri...until it was moved brick by brick to Springfield.
What may be the impression and what actually is are two different things. Another pitfall of stereotyping. Were you to study the answers by other kids in other countries to these same questions there is no way you could avoid answers which are similar in nature. It is universal.
If you want more of this, google "Richard Lederer" (without quotes). He has some funny books about this stuff.
Generally they are smarter than their American counterparts. But on the flip side, you need to remember there are many out there who takes education like a joke.
It just seems like they are 'stupid' because some educator out there found it money making to publish a book of errors people will not possibly make to fill his/her pocket. People answering in such a 'creative' way exist in every education system around the world. It is just ironic for England to have someone publish this on their behalf.
Web brits are happy to coast through school, mostly.
I gave those kinds of answers too... and look where I am =D
(...yes, i failed 2 years of college, thanks to the same laziness)
It's okay, college doesn't mean anything.
lol this isn't going to be an accurate display of the knowledge of the whole of the UK! Plus most of these sound sarcastic rather than serious.
If you really don't know a answer - why not go for a chuckle?
HAR HAR HAR HAR... Malays come from Malaria eh?
You prefer Maland?
Epick weeen aaha I'm a Malaysian myself but not exactly a Malay lol!
I'm Malaysian too mate.
Guess ppl don't know Brunei is a Malay country too..
It is? I thought it's independent.
To anon above. Brunei is another country with Malay ppl. But they are not in Malaysia.
When a boy leaves puberty, he heads into adultery.
What is this I don't even
Well, considering modern trends...
So, the word is "adulthood" isn't it? It sound as the answer was written by a mexican... like myself!
It does make sense. He starts going after many women at once. Isn't that adultery?
not if he isn't married :P
I really hope a boy didn't answer that XD
wtf :P
love the hedgerow removal one for some reason
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJY1JX_ETTo
"Find X.
^It's right up there."
Some of these answers had the same writing style / pen-pencil. I think most of these answers are trolls.
"Samefag detected."
United Kingdom's fucked for sure.
good vibrations were found in the 1960's along with AIDS.*
fixed.
I though the kid is gonna write "good vibrators are for penis and vagina" for a sec.
What is 'good' vibration and 'bad' vibration anyway? I never learnt that in my Physics class.
Go listen to the Beatles. I thought that answer was comedic genius.
The Beach Boys
Good Vibration is a very famous Beach Boys' song in the 1960s. It is considered as one of the greatest songs of all time by the Rolling Stones magazine. This kid surely got wide (non-)contextual knowledge.
You sure this is from schoolchildren?
I dunno, the handwriting seems pretty adult to me.
Clearly you misunderstand the UK.
Comprehension is so-so, but presentation is top notch!
It's like france, in reverse.
Well, I suppose it depends on whether "schoolchildren" means "pre-teens" or "pre-collegiate," but I'd say you've pretty much established your handwriting style by the time you hit… maybe age 10-12?
I'm 21 and never established mine. It's still a mess.
I'm pretty sure the pics above are replications of the original answers to make them... legible.
LOL, never thought there will be a Malaysian-related jokes here. UK schools seems to be fun.
that show how dumb people are these days
No, they're just not tight arsed nerds, they just like to have laugh.
Loads of lads over here just fuck around on tests (I did too while I was in school), it may not do us any good in the long run, but it's good for a laugh at the time.
I thought most of these were pretty funny.
True but then again, if you don't know any answer for definate, might as well go down with a bang for that particular question.
The highest frequency noise a human can transfer is Mariah Carey?
PHAIL
Actually that was made of epic win. I laughed so fucking hard at this shit, I almost gave birth to a Hyena.
I also lol'd at that. Best one.
This makes me feel useful as a human. It really does.
"Tracey is wrong. Use an example to show that Tracey is wrong."
"She's a woman."
This was already used in a motivational poster ..
Most are true, its the proctor's fault for making such an open ended question. XD
These have got to be fake. If you're so goddamn smart and witty why wouldn't you just answer the question correctly...
Because that would be boring.
I worked a job once digitized exam papers and such (it was from the U.S., but still...), and I can assure you that answers like these are very, very real.
Malays ain't from Malaysia... They're originally from Palembang, Indonesia...
Google is a lovely thing isn't it? ^_^
Also, history lessons, at least in Malaysia, made that point quite clear.
basically, they are the same...
snap!
LOLWUT.
I know Birmingham can be a pretty boring place, but I never knew Brummies have boring fashion sense as well. ;)
I think the guy answering the last question was closest to getting the correct answer, with him intending to answer "Malayia" (one letter short), but thought the word "malaria" sounded more correct since he heard that word before. (As someone with tonnes of relatives from Malaysia, I guess I carry enough of the Malaysians' sense of humour to not be offended by this at all. )
i come from Malaria, lawl
I thought the Malaysians would object to the apology offered; after all, Malays DO NOT COME FROM MALAYSIA. WTF.
Doh. Why spoil the joke.
Malaysia is a former colonial territory of the British empire and Indonesia isn't. Thats why its about Malaysia and isn't about Indonesia.
Fun fact.
THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE
BUT EVERYWHERE TO RUN.
"Flooding in areas such as the Mississippi Rive may be avoided by placing a number of big dames into the river." FAIL
Dames = women
Dams = barriers holding back water, water reservoirs
FAIL
Congrats, you answered correctly.
Would you like a prize? A gold Star to show to your mommy perhaps?
You also get a plaque with "Wet Blanket" written on it.
Actually, I believe it's more effective to build dikes along the river. Dams cost way too much and may cause an environment disaster.
That's what the dames are for:)
He said dikes, not dykes. :P
No matter how you look at it, placing dams INTO the river is about as productive as the dame solution.
They don't need more dames, they need more dykes.
Damn you! Now I can't take walks in Holland with a straight face again!
Lol, so that makes me a Malarian..? :3
First one is the best imo.
Umm.. take that back. I'm not Malay btw..
Hmmm, I wonder if we should fear the Malays now. I mean, they are the major cause of death in tropical Anopheles mosquito-infested countries.
At least that's what the Britons say about us up there. Great badmouthing eh?
I can't answer half(probably couldn't answer 1/4) of these myself, but the answers were funny all the same.
Smartest kids in the UK :D
vericose = very close.. this one crack me real hard..
And some of the questions, I couldn't even answer...
Yay for funny posts!
well that was good for the luls
this is what they called think outside of the box
UBER GENIUS for the answer ROLF!!!!!!
Big dames.. ROFLOLOL!!
I've seen this somewhere before...
This fails so hard it wins.
I actually thought a couple of the answers were good.I'd give them the partial credit for thinking of it if I could.
I answered some similar questions like that with appropriate(with sarcastic methods) answers because the questions i've had were point-blank obvious
e.g.
Who is James Watt?
>What?
correct
Describe Macbeth's tragedy
>they all die
As a fellow Brit, I should be ashamed at this, but they are actually really witty and funny.
The expansion one makes me want to slap the person who answered it though.
The fellow inject a hefty load of sarcasm in answering ALL the questions. Especially the expansion one.
I lol'd. Such clever responses.
fuck ya... sad to be a malaysian
http://bit.ly/48biNZ
Malay are dumbass pigs... they fucked the education system. first teaching from the beginning in english during colonial times till independence than some asshole change it to malay and than later regret as the useless malay lang doesn't even have enough vocabulary to describe today's modern terms. Now after 20-30years of malay education, they decide revert it back to english again... fuck ya... but BUT but after only barely 5 years into the change as to fucking cater those idiots in the village that cant speak english. They revert back to BAKA MALAY again. what a deinstitution thing to do
While I agree that the Malaysian government has fucked up in many ways, this topic is not about the Malaysian education system, but the British one.
well,its suck to be u.
at least even i m half malay half japanese,not otaku wannabe like ya and in here, i enjoy free eds,subsidized gas etc etc.and my father choose to live here instead of japan or INDON.
and u can start hating japanese now becoz we always think u people is just an uncivilized monkey who still believe in lucky buddha and all that stupid mystical thing
I can feel somebody intentionally stepping into bombs.
Well, I am a Minesweeper. That's what I do (when I'm bored anyway).
Steve was speeding @40.9 MPH and I didn't need to check his speedometer......
Well, at least I got one right.
"The opposite of pro?"
"n00b"
...Why is it wrong :(
It is wrong because someone apparently did not want to invent that word into the dictionary :(
Also very easy to answer this question. Add 'un-' before it and you got it.
This kids are geniuses with a great sense of humor.
Well, part of the problem was with these questions. A lot of people take things exceedingly literally. The last question however, that is just a stupid answer to that.
The problem is not with the UK schoolchildren... the problem is with questions that are exceedingly vague and the lack of 'open book' in these things.
I feel ashamed that I can't answer half of those questions.=(
Well, I can't answer all the questions except the Maths one. I didn't take literature classes. Not part of my country's syllabus.
EPIC win!
"How does Romeo's character develop throughout the play?
It doesn't, it's just self, self, self all the way through."
I would have given full credit for this response.
He really knows Romeo's characterization :P
Now I'm clear about Stand-Alone System....lol
I lulzed, especially to the speed limit one.
Really? that's the one that made me put on my serious face. Pretty sure the use kilometers not miles over in the UK
HAHAHA. Wrong. Otherwise I wouldn't struggle as much as a German to drive on their roads.
Silly buggers still use imperial.
Only in USA
It's Britain. Read carefully or you will join the ranks of the fellows who answered those questions.
No UNLIMITED ESSAY WORKS?!
It won't WORKS believe me.
Highly recommend this book to anyone. The maths section especially, is just lethal.
Just look at this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/1840247002/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-page
This book made my day so many times XD
I read snippets of the Chemistry part and facepalmed my way through. Wrong spelling and an obvious lack of reading. The questions were so direct!
I love this.
I really liked the Romeo one.
Q: Can a man still reproduce with only one testicle?
A: No, gurlz don't find that shit attractive.
The next EINSTEIN!!!
Er, there is no way I can be one of them (Phionperv referring to himself as an Einstein).
lol
what's is the function of the Skeleton?
his function is to defeat He-Man and conquer the castle of "Grayskull".
that was the answer of one of my class mate in a exam
By the power of GREYSKULL.
I also heard once of an epic answer, they had to write an essay about: "What is bravery?"
the person just wrote "This." on his paper and finished.
As well as I remember he got an A for that at least.
That I like.
If I were marking the papers and I see that answer, I am also going to give him an "A". That's because it's true, whoever writes that has a bit of iron in him.
Hey, I got almost the same situation too! The topic of the essay was "Bravery", so someone handed it up blank.
The teacher commented: "Bravery at the wrong time. 0"
it was National Exam btw lol
I heard something similiar to this. An essay "I dare" and one person wrote only "I dare..."
of course that person won the first prize.
*feeling somewhat jealous*
EPIC FAIL
As the intelligent being in Sankaku Complex, I deeply expressing my concern to this failure.
Is this our Super-generation in near future? What a shame DX But, I really appreciate their creative answers. Good Job! Make your teacher who corrected for the answers laughs XD
If those are all real answers, that actually gives me hope for the future.
Shows that kids today can still think outside the box.
Dear Mr. Anon
There are limitations to think differently.
To put it through, we must think inside the context. They are real questions, so the answers must real true according to the fact.
Correct me if I'm wrong,
This article just made my last moment before i sleep! i cried hard laughing to some of them, such epic answers. Wished we could have more of this of article here~
lol most of these are made up anyway specifcally to be funny. They're not real.
Also, they'll still a minority even if they are true.
And, I know people who put answers like this on their tests simply because they didn't care anymore due to the school system failing them.
Or they couldn't care less about education.
Or they are all aspiring to be comedians.
LOL, MALARIA! XD
LOL I'm from Malaysia but I must say...Malaria is a good answer!!!
LMAO
Malaria
GHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!XDDDDD
This is so fuckin' awesome.
This is something you ignorant yanks won't understand. Its called "sarcasm".
hur hur what be dis sarcasm sorry imma yanker walliwallibingbong
OMG! LMAO!!!
hahaha, i couldn't stop laughing XD
fun fact:
you can't pass classes by being a smart-ass
but it sure makes you fun to laugh at
???? why??? ???
why are u spaming this site?????
"Who was Joan of Arc?"
"Noah's wife?"
Those are clever...
Typical English children. Most are either "chavs" or drug addicts...
I live in the UK ¬_¬
OK, how many of these do you suppose are trolls by students trying to at least fail with some humour, how many are made up to be funny by someone who isn't even doing an exam and how many are actual serious answers by students that they actually think are correct? I'd be interested in knowing exactly how thick it's possible for a kid to really be.
very fuuny
What if your speedometer was in feet per second?
This book's pretty old.
My favourite one was the maths question that asked the pupils to "find x". One bright spark circled the x on the diagram and wrote "here it is".
At least some of these are made up. No school in the UK cares where the American Declaration of Independence was signed for example and most UK exam require much longer answers than these questions call for.
..."Somewhere in Philadelphia" would be my guess by the way.
Really? You don't think they offer American History courses in the UK? I know they offer British History courses in the US.
Genius, if only these kids existed in real life
God damn it I lawl'd xD
Kids sure do say the darndest things.
Seriously though, this article is lulz. If I was grading some of these, I would give them 100% just for being creative.
I would like to go to Malaria some day.
okay, the last one was fantastic! XD I'm Malaysian and I find it hilarious!
me too!
XDXDXD
lol i guess allot of UK people go on this site,
if this was results for the US i wonder how many people would say fail and not think it was "creative"
It was funny though
WTF, is totally funny, is still better in ENG, if in BM(Bahasa Malaysia) Malaysia's country language, is more funny is anyone knows BM. But i think is some people plan to share these kind of stupid things and come up with these kind of answers. xD
Dood, these answers were taken from British exam papers, why you're expecting any Malay language here?
Is this sankaku?
Welcome.
No, this is Patrick.
While I can't fault the given answer to the question "What did Mahatma Gandhi and Genghis Khan have in common?", I am curious to know what the expected answer was.
They were both leaders of their respective countries. Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India and Genghis Khan was the leader of Mongolia.
They're both dead and asian, for one.
they're both dead people in history books
This isn't very far from the truth lol. Some people do it for lulz...seriously...ahh good times in my Business Studies exam...I didn't know the answer for a question so I wrote 'Batman will save us' and 'Pie' for another...why not? If you really don't know it, answer with a stupid answer for fun. Though I won't deny some seriously think that those above are the answer for reals. Most teachers now just train kids for exams rather than actually teach them anything. But then it makes you wonder whether the kid who just threw a stanley knife at the board where the teacher stands is a lost cause...Shitty parents=shitty kids.
The education system here is a joke. Is this so surprising as to why UK has criminalized prostitution, banned loli/shota, got us in debt with the banks etc...But it was inevtiable when you have moral advocates and religious facists in power. Majority of the Lords are devout Christians or Catholics and supported by Christian Organization. The Commons? Just the same. Mordern Warfare 2 has been under fire ever since it came out...Wow now that I look at it I'm fairly stumped. Are us Brits just gettin more stupid by the year? Looking at the past 7 years and these incriminating legislations being churned out at the speed of light...It seems all too true. If we're not ruled by facists it's moralfags...or both. Welcome to 1984 and Animal Farm.
The names and the Birmingham ones were the best!
I haven't ROFL'd that hard in a while. This is by far one of the best articles I've ever read on this site.
Fantastically funny! British humor lives.
They were obviously trolling... Maybe, just maybe, they were just way too smart and looked down on the rest of their peers? Maybe there were a little cynical? Maybe they didn't give a shit about exams? Maybe the UK's school system's failing-wait a minute...
By the way, are these elementary school exams? I'm not familiar with the UK's educational curriculum.
dude, this is almost as old as the internet
I think they should get credit for being witty and original! I've seen some bad answers before, and these aren't bad.
Question: What is a vibration?
Answer: There are good vibrations and bad vibrations. Good vibrations were discovered in the 1960s.
That one broke my laugh box.
Not only that they fail at smiles, they fail academically...
The one thing they don't seem to fail at is to stab each other...
Funny thing that two of the top universities in the world are in the UK (Oxford and Cambridge).
British education is in such a sad state that now only one in five students are in the top 20% education bracket.
This is because rather than reading school books, those lifeless kids would rather read Stephenie Meyer's crapload of bullshit known as Twilight or watch Twilight movies.
*pokes New Moon*
This entry is so timely, Sankaku. Soooo very timely!
Most answers are absolutely correct. Math ones should have been calculated, but... i a way they we`re correct anyway.
i meant "in their own way most answers we`re correct". My sloppy always spelling... shoot me if you want.
I've only seen the expand one before. Some of these were pretty funny but others were meh.
i meant "in their own way most answers we`re correct". My sloppy spelling... shoot me if you want.
The amount of tests for preperation for final exams we get are rediculous so a few people just get sick of it and have some fun with it.
My answer to "Contrast and compare The knights tale and the millers tale." was three pages of normal writing and a drawing of a giant robot piloted by the miller fighting the knight between the pages.
Ps3 sucks.
Some of these are oh so very correct.
I was taking an IQ test recently during a psychological exam and I had to fight the urge to not answer some of the questions this way.
why was one of the tags 'schoolgirls', thats very misleading. still, good shit, the 'you might walk into the telephone mast' one was damn funny.
I hadn't noticed the school girls thing, that's almost as clever as some of the test answers.
"by placing a number of big dames into the river"
wasnt there JUST an article on Fat Princess?
Malays don't come from any country... they originate from Malaysia. People from Malaysia are called Malaysians anyway, not Malay. They do, however, speak Malay
wanna bet not all malaysian know how to speak malay?
I don't, so hah!
This news shouldnt' be here.
They aren't even written in hiragana.
LOL UK Schooling XDDD
jajajaja good theme!!!
LMAO! This reminds me of when I was back in college.
One girl in one of my gym classes thought that Manual Labor was the Communist Leader of Cuba. XDDD
I shudder to think where the world is headed with bright lights such as these making their way through the educational systems all over the world.
Why is the soil so fertile?
Because of all the micro orgasms.
Cracked up laughing at this. Especially the Romans one, reminds me of Monty Python "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
Ya! Brits are funny!
LONG LIVE JEREMY CLARKSON!!! POWERRRRRR!!!!
+100 for making my day
"Varicous" = "Very Close" lolol
These kids are creative. They still rattle their brains to write some answers rather than nothing.
Two thumbs up!
well, at least i found a reason why the world should be affraid of us Malaysians.
Agreed. *nods* :P
How can people be so stupid! lol!!!
Most of these answers were done with such genius and wit that the thought of these being answered by stupid students is nonetheless defamatory- stupid students don't come up with smart, creative answers such as these. It takes a bright student to make a joke out of a question they so happen to not have the proper answers for.
It also goes to show that Malaysia needs to work harder in order to be recognised a little bit more in the world compared to Singapore.
Thinking outside the box is considered fail? How close-minded are we!
Funny but too fake
Malaysia, the gayest country in Asia.
Malaysia truly gaysia ^.^
Malaysia truly Gay-Sia! ^_^
*Fixed
fuck u retard
Many of these are logical answers. I approve XD
lols i gotta try those on my tests xD ha ha xD
Last time I checked, there is no "race" called "Malays". You can't define race just by what country they're from. That's some serious racist bulls--t they're teaching over there. I feel sorry for these kids.
Expand 2(x+y) was hilarious - good post.
Actually, there IS a race called Malays. And yes, they are in Malaysia. But Malaysia also has Chinese and Indian and other indigenous races. So not only Malays come from Malaysia.
thank you for making my day, SC!
Well I suppose the students in question jsut thought >well I don't know shit about the topic so if I am going to fail I might as well fail as awesome as possible.<
Some of those aren't really a failure of the answer, but a failure of the question. Any smart person can see that.
some of these questions are even more of a failure than the answers, in fact.
HA ha ha that was hilarious, lol.
*falls from chair laughing*
Now my chair is "stand alone" one :P
the vibration one shows an element of vaguely intelligent humour at least
I remember more than once during my school days thinking "Fuck it!" during a test and just writing the goofiest answers I could think of.
1 + 1 = 10 in binary u noobs!!!!!
Fail. Some are okay but a lot were a little korny.
oh my fucking god
epic..to the nth degree
People in UK are so dumb! That's dumber than the stupid jokes you get from Filipinos or Vietnamese....
Didn't know there were plenty of Malaysians surfing Sankaku before I came across this page :P
*flies off to spread Malaria*
we do it in private~
lol
Oh, God. I loled very hard.
Reminds me of some weird answers that my friends and I answered in our examinations..
"What are converging lens?"
"Lens that converge.(?)"
"Give 2 examples of converging lens."
"Lens that converge and lens that don't diverge."
lolwut I got 40% for my whole paper
Oh God even Cirno would have given better answers then these.
I now under stand why the Brits allow their liberty and privacy to be stripped away without a complaint.
British humour - you're born with it.
18 is actually pretty hard. I can't remember that conversion off the top of my head.
The response about Romeo's character development is true, though. I mean, he's a loathsome, self-centered little git throughout the entire play. He doesn't get better, he just dies.
I would be highly interested in seeing the same person's answer to questions regarding Hamlet's character dev :P
most creative way to fail class
hope to see you in fall semester
Some pretty creative answers there... i wouldn't be able to think up something so funny!