Just kidding.
I was never a whizz at exams. At secondary school I crammed to scrape through after doing as little as possible the rest of the time.
I credit the Old School Mate from Feilding with my pass in School Certificate science. She taught me how to balance chemical equations, a skill I retained long enough for the exam and have never managed since.
Did my pass in that exam, or any of the others I crammed for, show anything worthwhile about me, my knowledge or ability?
Were lazy crammers like me gaming that system, as Education Minister Erica Stanford might say, just in a different way from how students work out how to accumulate credits in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) now?
In later life when I undertook undergraduate university study through distance learning, in one exam a fellow student was distracted by me sitting behind him dramatically scrawling out a whole essay as I realised I had failed to answer the question. (Thankfully, an aegrotat pass came into play because of the impact of my husband’s terminal illness on my ability to study at that time.)
Still later when I passed a communication law paper with an unexpectedly high grade, given the dog’s breakfast I was sure I had made of the exam, I wondered if the papers had been thrown down a stairwell and graded according to where they landed.
Exams crossed my path literally recently during an ongoing assault on my aptly named junk room, a part of my house where things go to die when I am too lazy, disorganised, confused, or indecisive to think of something better to do with them.
Among the dead was a selection of the offspring’s decades-old NCEA exam papers.
I had embarked on a major chuck-out because it was getting difficult to find my way to the freezer.
The possibility of never being able to access its possibly in-need-of-carbon-dating contents might turn out to be a matter of life and death.
More importantly, I would not be able to reach the ice cream, strictly for the grandchildren, you understand.
Wool sacks were bought (yes, plural) to accommodate the detritus in readiness for getting a skip later on.
During the life of the project, from time to time the vacuum cleaner was extracted from the mayhem and pressed into action.
The length of the rigid part of the hose was so short, my vacuuming vibe resembled that of a demented half-shut pocketknife.
I became convinced I had removed a length of the hose and either accidentally thrown it into one of the wool sacks or left it somewhere else in the house.
There were days of retracing footsteps, searching under beds and couches, in cupboards, the wool sacks — anywhere I could possibly have left it.
In desperation, I consulted my companion. Had he any idea where it could be?
‘‘Elspeth,’’ he said in a tone which could only be described as resigned.
‘‘That hose is telescopic.’’
He demonstrated this magic which had escaped me in the several years I have owned this particular machine.
Was there a test I could have passed to avoid this embarrassment?
The closest thing I could come up with, after ruling out an intelligence test, was unit standard 28350: Demonstrate knowledge of cleaning equipment and basic cleaning principles.
It is worth 10 credits at level 2 of the 10-step New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework.
Among the things I should be able to do if I passed would be to demonstrate knowledge of cleaning equipment and check electrical equipment as safe for use.
It is not clear to me if this unit standard, and related cleaning ones, which I gather could be offered now by schools through the Careerforce Gateway programme, will survive the school qualifications changes.
There is still vagueness about the form of the new curriculum industry-led subjects to be developed in conjunction with Industry Skills Boards.
The ministry says these subjects will strengthen connections between learning and careers in areas such as construction, engineering, health and community services.
Every subject, academic or otherwise, in the new year 12 and 13 qualifications will involve internal assessments and an examination, generating A-E grades for each subject, with C a pass.
Students will have to take five subjects and pass three of them to get the qualifications.
It may turn out to be easier to understand and appear more coherent than the existing NCEA, but the reduced flexibility is also likely to disadvantage and discourage some learners.
As for me, I am just grateful my companion did not discourage me further by awarding a three-letter grade over my vacuum failure — NTB (Not Too Bright).
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
