The Joys of Marking

Here's an assortment of the most delightful things I've come across while marking 250 Standard Six end of year exams:

1) Marking 9 papers in a row, all but one by someone who's surname is 'Banda'.

Top 5 names:

5 - Happy Gwinya

4 - Loveness Khumwenda

3 - Chimwemwe Nthumbidwa

2 - Binku Mtengowagwa

1 - Mwaiwawo Mwale

English:

Question - Add a question tag, eg. You are joking, aren't you?

                 Andrea is dead,                    ?

Answer -   Andrea is dead, play football?

Question - Fill in the verb in this sentence:
                Andrea               football.
Answer -   Andrea I am iting nsima football.

Question - Give the opposite of 'uncomfortable'.

Answer -   ununcomfortable

Science and Technology:

Question - Give 3 ways of cleaning the home.

Answer -   i) Goat      ii) Chicken    iii) Bat

And finally the most gloriously Malawian answer of all ...

Question - What are the 3 states of matter?
Answer -   i) fish      ii) maize      iii) water




P.S. I feel I should also share with you a couple of the difficulties of doing exams at Chimbowe Primary School. Firstly, there isn't enough room in the classroom for them to spread out at all, so they have to sit next to each other on the floor, which makes it obviously very easy to copy. Thus all you can do is stop them talking. However this is also tricky because there are 80something of them, and so when you hear someone talking it's really hard to work out who it is. Especially since there is no door and the windows are gaps in the wall so you can always hear kids talking outside. So you have to look really intently at everyone to see if they are talking. But, alas, this doesn't work. Because everyone's lips are moving, even when it's completely silent. Because they can't read without moving their mouths.