30 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Notes from the chair Tests, exams and MOTs Everywhere I turn there seems to be some sort of exam, test, and appraisal going on. In the Evans household, at the time of writing, we are experiencing the white heat of exam preparation. Both daughters are revising (allegedly) and nerves are stretched to breaking point. Daughter No 1 is a week away from her GCSEs and is experiencing the unpleasant revelation that the teachers were actually saying something useful during the preceding two years, as we struggle with sines and cosines, and the relative mass of the elements and moles. Until two weeks ago I thought these were rather charming sleek-skinned little creatures with poor eyesight. Chemists amongst you will know that a mole is the amount of pure substance containing the same number of chemical units as there are atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon-12. How long it has taken for me to remember that! Exam preparation requires several things: forbearance on the parts of parents, random outbursts of wailing (from the teenage girls and parents), a moratorium on all housework or any kind of helping, and twice-weekly communal revision sessions. This latter requirement is important. Girls have to do their work together, and when there are gathered together more than two 16-year old girls it is decreed that copious tea and plentiful cake must abound. Another cardinal rule is that the parent must purchase whatever stationery, highlighters and yellow sticky pads are declared necessary within half an hour, or she will fail the exam and ruin her life forever. That means it will have been entirely your fault. The younger daughter is auditioning for the school summer production, which means it is open season for artistic temperaments, diva tantrums and jazz hands. The process for the cast selection is long and detailed, and somewhat like an exam too. Parallel to the list of highlighters and yellow sticky post-its from the elder daughter, the summer production auditions demand the purchase of comedy hats, feathers and roller skates. If I have not purchased these items within half an hour of the request being made, I will have killed off her promising theatrical career before it starts. I phone my cousin in Norfolk for some light relief and agricultural banter, but he too is in the throes of assessments and exams. It is agricultural show season and he is a big cheese in the world of the Charolais. This is a large, creamy and handsome breed of The IHBC’s Annual School in June inWinchester.The September issue of Context will report the event in full.
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