Theodore Dalrymple on British Education

Over at City Journal , Theodore Dalrymple writes about the case of the student who, taking a national exam in Britain, answered the question, “Describe the room you’re in,” with “F—k off,” and received a grade of 7.5 percent.

The examiner explained, “it would be wicked to give it zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for.” To which Dalrymple replies, “Unfortunately, my knowledge of English expletives is not sufficiently extensive to compose a sentence that would have attracted marks of 100 percent.”