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A clear case of 'laxative enforcement policies'
28 August 2008
Academics have responded with gusto to the revival of Times Higher Education's annual "exam howlers" competition. This year's student slip-ups include visual as well as verbal gems, on topics ranging from nirvana to Northern Rock. First up, one for the "truer than intended" section, courtesy of a student of University of Southampton research fellow Anita Perryman: "Tackling climate change will require an unpresidented response."
In literature, a student of Bath Spa University teaching fellow Greg Garrard contributed the following insight into the work of author Margaret Atwood: "The Handmaid's Tale shows how patriarchy treats women as escape goats."
Meanwhile, Geoffrey Wood, a professor at City University London, was informed by one of his economics students that the failure of Northern Rock was due in part to the "laxative enforcement policies" of the regulator.
When Dave Harrison of St Helens College of Art and Design asked his Access to Higher Education students to "outline the importance of the four Noble Truths to the Buddhist faith", one wrote: "Nirvana cannot be described because there are no words in existence for doing so. Not non-existence either, it is beyond the very ideas of existing and not existing."
Another, asked to outline the importance of the railway in 19th-century Britain, said: "The railways were invented to bring the Irish from Dublin to Liverpool where they were promptly arrested for being vagrants."
In answer to the same question, another said: "The railways were invented to take the weight off the motorways."
Rob Stewart, from the University of the West of England, provided the following examples of student spelling howlers: Alchol instead of alcohol (he thought students knew that subject); whom instead of womb (anatomy paper); abominous instead of abdominal.
Special thanks also to Chris Holloway, a retired professor at the University of the West of England, who sent us some highlights of his own collection: "Service products are often intangible, perishable, inseparable and heterogenital"; "Bangkok's notoriously girly bars attract businessmen and larger louts"; "The Loire valley inspired the chef to cook delicacies such as salmon, elves and lamprey"; "Air stewardesses step into the role of portraying their front region, as the job requires them to."
And his favourite: "Control of infectious diseases is very important in case an academic breaks out."
rebecca.attwood@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
Many egregious howlers, but the definition of nirvana isn't one of them - it's a perfectly comprehensible account of the ineffable. What's it doing here?
"Many egregious howlers, but the definition of nirvana isn't one of them" <p>I don't get that one either. It made perfect sense to me, except that the sentiments could have been expressed in clearer English. Should I therefore think twice about enrolling at St Helens College of Art and Design if I should wish to undertake study of philosophy or theology in the future?
My all-time favorite has to be an essay where a student referred to "excremental music" instead of "experimental music." The question for me was (and still is): was his writing an error or did he, in fact intend to write what he did?
My favourite, from 10 years or so ago, was a student going on about the "keynesian theory of full unemployment".
The best 2 zingers I have ever received came from my first year teaching English at the University level. <p>1) "Antisemitism in Nazi Germany was difficult, especially for the Jews." <p>2) "Beowulf is an anonymous medieval poem written in the 18th century by Robert Cotton." <p>The first one, in its way, could not possibly be more correct. The second is poetry--an epic of creation and destruction, of thesis and antithesis, of Sodom and Gomorrah! <p>During the final exam for a course on science fiction, all of my students had to answer the question: "A cute girl or guy is making eyes at you at a party. How do you know they are not an android?" My best answer was simply: "If I can't tell the difference, who cares?" <p>HJ
You get bored in Exams, may as well cheer the examiner up
My GCSE English teacher once showed me a creative writing essay by another student called "The Deftifying Leap"...
Mildly entertaining, although I always think that bloopers that creep into exam questions are even more amusing (although the sign-error that derailed one of my physics finals wasn't so much fun at the time).
Since these are answers on exams, I assume they're handwritten. Now, I'm married to the World's Best Husband, but he does have a few flaws, and forming letters with a pen or pencil is among them; his best scribbles are only somewhat legible. (We dated as undergraduates, and I pitied our professors then. He was mostly saved by being correct, and engineering exams aren't usually examined further if the final answer is the expected number. If he'd been reduced to angling for partial credit as I was, he'd have been in terrible trouble. ) <p>Some of the "bloopers" strike me as possible misreading of a student's horrendous scribbling.
As an English composition instructor, I often see "howlers" in my students' texts. Here are a few of my favorites: <p>On the causes/effects of the cycle of poverty: "The most influential aspect of poverty is the absence of marriage between parents, particularly mothers." <p>On the causes/effects of terrorism: "The next time the terrorists attack, it will be with Amtrax." <p>And, an explanation for the sky rocketing salary packages of CEOs: <br>"The willingness of most company's boards to offer such deals to future CEOs is parsley based on stock holder's pressure for bigger gains . . ." <p>Sometimes I just have to laugh . . . <p>Sometimes, one just have to laugh, no?
Marking some CSE scripts I had "The size of human population is dependant on four factors: The Birth Rate, The Death Rate, Immigation, and The Pope". <p>My two favourites coming from the world of soil ecology: <p>"Symbiosis may be defined as 'living together' in Greece" <p>Substitute Greek, for Greece, and they would have been there. <p>and <p>"Wood is difficult to decompose, because it is highly dignified". <p>I think he meant "lignified" - or at least I hope he did. <p>Somehow, I think that I prefer these two to the correct answers.
A lot of the bloopers strike me as selecting the wrong 'correction' when spell-checking coursework. For example, 'elves' in the Loire valley should presumably have been eels. It doesn't take much typing inaccuracy to accidentally type 'eles'. 'Elves' is certainly one of the suggestions in Word 2007, although the top suggestion is 'else' (and eels appears higher than elves). <p>The grammar checker is usually responsible for even worse howlers. <p>These tools can alert you to a problem but using them requires that the user understand the suggestions that are being made, and to pick the correct suggestion, or correct manually. It's no substitute for actually being able to spell.
Even more probably, 'elves' could have been an attempt at 'elvers'. Still a funny image.
The one about Nirvana is clearly not an actual mistake, but it deserves its place for being so funny. It's either an amusingly pathetic attempt to bullshit one's way around a question, or the student intended it as a joke.
As a previous commenter points out, the definition of Nirvana completely in line with Buddhist tradition. It's a textbook response, not bullshit or a joke.
Of course, one might also question why 'escape goat' makes the winning entry in the 'howlers' competition, since, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary 'scapegoat' literally means "the goat that escapes" (Bibl. a goat sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it; Lev. 16). So the examinee wasn't as daft as all that. <p>Far more jaw-dropping is the occasionally shown TV blooper where a member of the public, interviewed by a local reporter, complains of being made a 'sheep goat', whatever that might be!
Nirvana answer is very perceptive, and remarkable close to the answer found in the Heart Sutra. Hardly a howler, but an excellent response.
Whilst the definition of Nirvana may be correct, how does it outline the importance of the four Noble Truths to the Buddhist faith? Emphasis on the "importance" bit. I say that was a bullshit way around answering the question.
These 'bloopers' are of course amusing, but I think we should show caution before we interpret mere slips of the pen and/or brain as demonstrating a lack of knowledge of the subject. <p>Am I the only person that often makes mistakes handwriting words I know perfectly well how to spell, or gets distracted whilst trying to hold more than one thought in my head leading me to write down completely the wrong word by mistake? <p>And as for my mistyping of the the word 'shutter' in front of an audience the other day, the less said about that the better.