Novelty sports

Windserfing [sic!]

A not unexpected answer in today’s practice listening test. It was probably practised in the Middle Ages, but fell out of fashion with the arrival of the Renaissance. And I see that once again, Kit Evans is on top of Mars taking photographs. At the age of 16 she “discovered the school to develop film”.

And did you know that forests “prevent dessert spread too far”? Or that one of the problems with wind turbines is their high pay? (The former is slightly embarrassing because the question includes the word “desert” and asks for two other things which a forest does.)

There’s also some magical plum tree which yields 37km² of fruit.

10. (d) Why are companies interested in using wind turbines?
Student’s answer: avoid fax.

Possibly good advice, and obviously copied since the following paper had the same answer.

Although these practice tests are informal, I’ve asked them not to do this sort of thing, but there’s that innate imperial inability not to cheat at some level which makes them incapable of not equating copying with personal achievement.

10. (e) Give a specific example of how wind power is already being used in a city centre.
Student’s answer: Two birds fly can make the bulb light.

Did you even consider whether this made sense? I think “two birds (fly)” is an attempt to render the word “turbine”.

9. (b) How can the clearance of forest areas be stopped?
Student’s answer: transform the altitude of people and government.

I’ve let them get away with this answer in previous years. Not this time. I’ll let them misspell “attitude”, but “altitude” is a wholly different word.

One student thought the title of the book by the photographer was Sailing Electrons. Sounds like a sci-fi novel.