History Exam

I was doing a history exam on the Tudors and

Stuarts and there was a question on whether

the Justices of the Peace in Tudor times were

central to how the Tudors maintained power

and while I was busy answering it, I glanced

down at the exam paper and there was a

question I hadn’t noticed. It said, ‘If you had

to choose between three different types of

toothpaste what would be the criteria you would

use to determine your choice?’ Then it had

some qualities of toothpaste and you had to

tick in whichever boxes mattered to you the

most. There was: ‘the toothpaste claimed that

it would whiten your teeth’; ‘the toothpaste

claimed to freshen up your mouth’; ‘the

toothpaste would help your gums stay healthy’

and ‘the toothpaste would help you see in the

dark’. I ticked the one about the toothpaste

helping me see in the dark because I thought

that would be very useful, particularly some time

when I was in the bathroom and the light’s not

working, not even in the little glass wall cabinet

where I keep my nail scissors and indigestion

pills, not that I’ve had indigestion for some years

now.