I recently got my CAPE unit 1 results. Now, when I was doing the exams, I had a little vision in my head of what the results were going to come out like. Spanish would be simply perfect, because I had no problems whatsoever during the test. The three papers and the oral were like a dream. Communication studies would not be so good, because the exam seemed very different from the past papers. I was asked to design a vegetable product and cocked up spectacularly. English literature was going to be okay, because for once, the poetry question wasn't awful... not like the mock exam when I wrote half an essay, not because I ran out of time, but because there was nothing in my head to put down on the paper. But out of all the exams, French would be the worst nose-up to be seen in history. Paper 3 was not so good. Paper 1 was terrible. Paper 2 was the examination from hell. I was expecting a two, or worse.

Now, here is what actually happened. I went to the school to collect my slip. The first thing I see is Andy in tears being supported by T-Nizzle walking away from the office. Not a reassuring sight. But I tramped reluctantly into the office anyway and collected my slip. I signed for it with a shaking left hand. I did not look at it. I walked outside with it, still folded, not looking at it, not wanting to look at it. T-Nizzle had divested herself of Andy, and was now standing alongside me, so I decided to give her the task of looking at it for me. She unfolded the paper and scrutinised it briefly.

"How is it?" I asked in trepidation.
"It's good," she replied, with a steady expression. "There's something wrong with English, so you shouldn't be upset about it."
"WHAT?!!?"

That was the exchange that took place. After that, I worked up the courage to regard the slip of paper. This is what it said.

Communication Studies    -                One (AAA)
Spanish                            -                One (AAA)
French                             -                One (AAA)
Literatures in English       -                Three (CCC)

Distinctions in everything but my native language. This has never happened to me before. I was awarded the regional distinction of Most Outstanding Humanities Candidate last year, so how do I go from that to getting a three in lit? I think something is extremely rotten in the state of Denmark. Or in the territory of Barbados. That must be it. I think I need to have a little chat with Dr. Harris, because people across the country are complaining of this massive affliction of threes in English literature, even in QRC and the east of the country.

There is also another example of anomalous marking evident in the results of Fifi. On the CAPE unit 1 geography examination for 2007, this student deliberately supplied the wrong answer to every question on the paper. For example:

      What are the possible effects of global warming?
      1. People will get dreadful sunburn.
      2. The death of humanity.

      Give the reason for this phenomenon in nature.
      Because God said so.

A grade of seven is the lowest achievable grade in the CAPE examination. So why, then, did Fifi miraculously manage to pull out of her ass a grade five?

This and many questions relating to CAPE will just have to go unanswered until the new term starts tomorrow.