This week we received our school calendars and supplies lists for the coming school year. I don’t even want to think about school yet — I’m enjoying the laid-back pace of summer. At least, it’s laid-back now, between some of the busyness of the early part of the summer and the wedding to come.

But as I was looking through some of my files, I came across this list I had received years ago in an e-mail of test questions and supposed real answers. I guess these just point out there will always be a need for education!! (And good listening skills and study habits….)

Q: What’s the most important thing to learn in Chemistry?
A: Never lick the spoon.

Q: Name the four seasons.
A: Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.

Q: Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink.
A: Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.

Q: How is dew formed?
A: The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire.

Q: What causes the tides in the oceans?
A: The tides are a fight between the Earth and the Moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight.

Q: What are steroids?
A: Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs.

Q: What happens to your body as you age?
A: When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.

Q: How can you delay milk turning sour?
A: Keep it in the cow.

Q: How are the main parts of the body categorized? (E.g. abdomen.)
A: The body is consisted into three parts – the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels, A, E, I, O and U.

Q: What is the Fibula
A: A small lie.

Q: What does “varicose” mean?
A: Nearby.

Q: Give the meaning of the term “Caesarean Section.”
A: The caesarean section is a district in Rome.

Q: What is a seizure?
A: A Roman emperor.

Q: Give an example of a fungus. What is its characteristic feature?
A: Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas.

Q: What does the word “benign” mean?
A: Benign is what you will be after you be eight.

And these are supposedly from real essays with original (mis)spellings:

Without the Greeks we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks had three types of cowlums, Dorian Corinthian and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates was killed by an overdose of wedlock.

Life in ancient Greece reeked with joy. In the Olympic games they ran around and tossed the java. The victors won a coral wreath.

Eventually the Ramons beat up all the geeks. History calls them Romans because they never stayed in one place.

Nero was a cruel tyranny who tortured his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

In the midevil times most of the people were aliterate.

It was an age of great discovery and Guttenberg invented the bible. Sir Walter Ralieh invented cigarettes and Francis Drake circumcised the globe with a 100 foot clipper.

Romeo and Juliet are an example of an heroic couplet.

(Graphic from Anne’s Place)