UK Students And Their Blooping History Exams

Glenn Ricketts

Apparently, exam bloopers by history students occur with such frequency and hilarity in Britain that the Times Higher Education Magazine can sponsor an annual competition for the most hysterical howlers.  

Have a look at this piece in the Telegraph for some of the choicer specimens, including one student who describes Stalin’s Cold War strategy of constructing a “buffet zone” between his Eastern European Communist empire and the capitalist West. I guess we should be grateful that he doesn’t think that Cold War was a prolonged snowball fight.  I wonder what results a similar competition in the US would produce – I fear that we’d probably win, hands down. 

It’s all very funny, of course, but  we also have to remember that these gems are coming from college history students.  You have to be a tad skeptical of their content mastery, I think.

  • Share

Most Commented

May 20, 2025

1.

How Female is Campus Anti-Semitism?

The anecdotal evidence is starting to pile up while academia’s thesis that white men are source of evil continues to crumble....

May 8, 2025

2.

NAS Commends Government Proposal on Tackling Student Loan Crisis

The Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan provides systematic and beneficial reform to America’s student loan system, and to higher education as a whole. It is a welcome complement......

June 17, 2025

3.

America Needs to Revitalize Civics Education

Recent protests and current events reveal a deep-seated need to educate for virtuous citizens....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

October 12, 2010

2.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...

September 21, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What Does YHWH Elohim Mean?

A reader asks, "If Elohim refers to multiple 'gods,' then Yhwh Elohim really means Lord of Gods...the one of many, right?" A Hebrew expert answers....