Be Excellent To Each Other

I worked it out properly in notepad.

Malc

7/8 - For some stupid reason I decided Gallop was faster than Race.

And to be fair I could have failed the first question because there was no way I was going to sit and work it out properly - so I just estimated the ball park figure, then clicked the closest.

I was quite surprised with myself over the 'steps' question. The lesson where we learnt about finding the mean height of the steps and multiplying it by the number of columns came flooding back.

Good one Maths Teacher - you did well!

I also thought "Gallop" would be faster than "Race".

So did I, on the grounds that a race is quite disciplined and a gallop suggests a chaotic scramble. I think this question is ambiguous.

I picked Race as the fastest because I reasoned that it meant you would be going as fast as possible.

The disciplined race vs balls-out galloping applies though. See: late 80s Grand Prix, with Mansell facing off against Senna. Mansell's aggression, compared to Senna's more calculated style, meant Mansell often won ... when he wasn't breaking bits off the car or smacking it into things.

A gallop is surely a fast, but steady pace like that of a horse; an animal famed for stamina and continuous pace. "Race" implies a 'attempt to reach as quickly as possible', which doesn't necessarily mean steady or paced.

7/8 - Jumping on the gallop faster than race bandwagon.
My excuse is that my brain was still fried from the first two maths questions. I'm sure I must have had a calculator at the time (although I could've done them in my head if I wanted to )

I hardly think knowing what 'deus ex machina', one of the most widely used phrases in literary/filmic criticism, means is 'showing off'.

I was making a little joke

8/8 for me too...although I did guess at the whom/who question.

But "race" is context-dependant in a way "gallop" isn't, which is what threw me. "Galloped" implies speed in pretty much all contexts, whereas "raced" doesn't. It implies greater acceleration, but not greater speed. I thought. I also didn't get the first question because I messed up my shortcut maths, but I'm pretty sure I could have done it with a pen and paper. Did they get those then?

My scarecrow story "I am a scarecrow. Being a scarecrow I have no working eyes or limbs or senses, so I stand paralysed all day while nothing happens to me, and it isn't very fucking fun." I would have gone to brick-laying school.

I couldn't do the mental arithemtic one. I even tried reasoning about ending in odd numbers and such - but they all did. So I gave up and guessed.

If there ever is a BEEX short story contest, the task should be "You are a scarecrow. Write a story." We'd all have a headstart in it!

But....scarecrows can't write, miss!

Irrelevant.

Write a story.

Once upon a time, there was a scarecrow. He was a good scarecrow. He won an award, because he was outstanding in his field. The end.

Once upon a time I was a scarecrow. I scared crows. They went away. The farmer came and saw no crows, so he put me on a bonfire. It hurt a lot. Now the crows are back and I am smoke. The End.

Stone the crows GazChap, that was terrible!

I am a scarecrow. I do fuck all, all day every day, in the vain hope that one day I'll star on a tv show talks about the fact I haven't got a brain. Much like Big Brother. The End.

I am a Scarecrow. I am a top-level operative for the "Agency" and I accidentally involved a divorced housewive in one of my missions. Eventually I married her. The end.

I am a scarecrow called Myoptika. I have crap hair.

I am a scarecrow. I have ornithophobia*. Sucks to be me.

*Top of my head, bitches!

Days of the Scarecrow - A Choose Your Own Adventure Book

Page 1
You are a scarecrow. You are standing in a big field.

Do you...
carrying on standing in the field? (Turn to page 1)
scare some crows? (Turn to page 1)

Fear of ornithopters? How peculiar..

When I read that question, I see it like this:

A scarecrow, writing a story.

YOU are a SCARECROW, and you're WRITING a STORY.

Therefor you could write a massive epic fantasy about hobbits, and it'd be fine. I'm sure sentient scarecrows like to write stories about hobbits.

"A scarecrow is shouting at me and he says he won't stop following me until I write him a story about a scarecrow who has no hands. Please leave me alone, I just want to go home."

Also, ugh. I never say "whom", ever. It's a wanky, unnatural word in any context. "Whatfff would you like for dinner?" "Whyvvvv are you sitting there?" "whom"? Sod off, more like.


7/8. Whommmmmm wrote this? A cunt, that's whommmmm.

I am a scarecrow.

It's rubbish.

I used to be Doctor fucking Who, you know!

Doctor Whom

Whom is on first

Both excellent

My scarecrow story was truly beautiful.

Can I buy the film rights?

You can if my negotiations with Doctor Boll fall through.

Fucking 11+.

I passed, went to the Grammar school, got excluded half-way through my first year when I was formally 'statemented' for having Dyslexia, then didn't go to school for a year because the local ones were all full up or religious. I'm still massively fucked-off about all that.

How does that work? Being dyslexic is actually grounds for getting booted out? Or was it some kind of misplaced idea of putting you in a school where you could get suitable 'assistance'?

Well I was struggling a bit, not too much, but the school headmaster said I was bringing down the standards of the school, could affect the GCSE results (I was 12), so I was unteachable. I wasn't formally chucked out as I have never been a delinquent, they just refused to let me into classes, refused to let me wear the school uniform in school(!), all that shit. I didn't need to go to a special school or anything like that; the school I eventually arrived at was a normal secondary. Just I was still massively ahead in terms of learning, so was quite bored.

Um... that sounds almost spectacularly illegal.

Might well have been. Or not. Long time ago anyway. I assume now it was because the grammar school wasn't under LEA control that they did were allowed to. The local (Tory) MP certainly wasn't any help though, he just told my parents to educate my privately(!) and didn't respond to any more faxes or letters.

These questions are more my level.