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October 12, 2005

TEST THE NATION - ENGLISH RESULTS

It started with a strange feeling at the back of my throat, then a constant headache and finally pain in the sinuses. Then, when the blocked nose appeared last Friday morning, I knew that my health was plummeting. "Sounds like you're getting a bit of a cold" colleagues at work told me as I sniffed and sneezed my way through the end of the week. And that's what I though too. Until Saturday.

After waking up every hour during the night, I gave up trying to sleep and got my ass out of bed about half six. The headache had quadrupled the power of its thump, the sinuses were stinging with pain, my body soared from 'too hot, too hot' to 'c-c-c-c-crikey it's c-c-c-old' and my energy levels slumped.

So I spent most of the day on the sofa, watching football, knocking back sinus pills and generally feeling sorry for myself. Then the BBC decided to announce that they would be running the 'Test The Nation' English quiz that night. Being a bit of a stickler for 'you're' versus 'your', 'less' versus 'fewer' and 'could have' versus 'could of', I sat down with my remote control's red button and played along.

Amongst the celebrities in the panel was Suggs (of Madness fame), Christian Malcolm (of Athletics fame) and David Spinx (of illiterate, messy imbecile in Eastenders fame) and in the audience were Surgeons, Freshers, Radio DJs and Receptionists. Anne Robinson appeared and so began the quiz.

Round after round passed - rhyming slang, comprehension, spelling, grammar, collective nouns, language etc and I was busy trying to cope with being barely able to hear the television (illness affects my hearing), pressing the buttons on the remote control within the time limits allowed, and breathing through my mouth. Eventually Anne called a halt to proceedings, much to the delight of the receptionists, and soon enough the results began to come through.

The national average in England was 43 out of 70, the surgeons averaged 48 and Suggs himself scored 49. Not bad considering many of the phrases were modern slang - a chugger, for example, is a charity street collector - and especially not bad considering the strange collective nouns that appeared - it's an ostentation of peacocks by the way. And a herd of elephants, but I got that one..

So, sitting there sniffling, head thumping away, zapped of all energy and concentrating on staying alive I managed to rack up a score of 52 which put me, according to the researchers, in the top 20% of the population. 54 would have put me in the top 5% and 58 would have meant the top 1%, but I was happy with 52 given the circumstances.

According to my digital screen, my results were:
Comprehension: 8 out of 11
Spelling: 9 out of 14 (WHAT? I didn't win the spelling prize at Longacre School for nothing you know)
Language: 11 out of 14
Grammar: 13 out of 16
Words: 11 out of 15

If I rabbit and pork a bit more you might think I'm laying it on with a trowel, but now I know that a circular file is a waste bin, that inoculate is spelt i-n-o-c-u-l-a-t-e and not with two n's and that the plural of mother-in-law is 'mothers-in-law'. The thing is, I KNEW ALL THOSE. I also knew that a comfort station is a lavatory and that the phrase mad as a hatter came about because of too much mercury. But I got them wrong.

Poxy illness - I AM TOP 1% OH YES I AM. You just wait til next year...

Posted by jonola14 at October 12, 2005 07:11 PM

Posted by: cjp at October 20, 2005 01:06 AM

Posted by: steph at October 20, 2005 03:05 PM

Posted by: Jonola at October 20, 2005 08:56 PM