What do all old men have???

I passed the 11 plus and remember thinking it was quite easy but we had class of 48!! and only 6 of us passed so guess was quite hard!!

long time ago.

. celeb you passed I did not ..so why is ribs the answer?

Silly questions need silly answers.

Quite right Bags, I have thought of some very silly answers, but perhaps not wholly appropriate for Gransnet.

mice ..so did I

I passed the 11+ as did all but one of the children in my class. But I don't understand that one!

A truly bizarre question and even more bizarre answer! Am prepared to accept that the woman forgot the correct answer but felt she recalled the question with accuracy!

'googling' suggests various answers, none very flattering to old men - but not RIBS. Is it a literary question, rather than an anatomical one?

When I took the 11 plus, the quality of school was very varied. In my country junior school, nobody ever passed. In my suburban junior school, many passed. I probably passed because my parents happened to move from country to suburbia when I was 9. It was life-changing move for me, completely unplanned and certainly nothing to do with me.

I did not pass. Classmates who were taking the exam all had special extra lessons to practice the Non verbal reasoning. My parents decided a bit late to put me in for the exam (I was at boarding school & they were overseas) so I had never seen a Non Verbal test before i sat the 11+!! Do not think it ever held me back going to a secondary mod!

I was one of 6 who passed at our school, but that question and answer are puzzling me.

Beats me how the woman in question got to know the correct answer - we were never given any feedback or information after taking the 11+, you'd either passed or failed. You knew by the colour of the envelope which landed on the hall mat on the day after the results were sent out - white and you'd passed, brown and you'd failed! (I think the letters must have come from the appropriate school...)

When the results were posted to parents in my county, the envelopes were addressed to Mr J Smith if you failed, and to J Smith Esq if you had passed.

I am so happy that my children went to a comprehensive school where they received a much better education that I did at my grammar school or my DH at his Secondary Modern.

Grammar schools got (and in some areas get) good results because they select the brightest kids, not because they give the best education. Do people still not get that do you think, or do they pretend they don't. The standards of teaching expected today are incomparably more demanding than they were in the heyday of the grammar school.

The only reason I can see for that answer to the question is that the word men refers to the race of man as opposed to the sexes and the rib because of biblical references to Adam's rib - one of the questions I remember having when we were doing test papers in readiness for the 11+ was how many balls of string does it take to reach the moon? ---- one if it was long enough!!!!!

Would the words "a willy" not have done!

Theres nothing like lowering the tone of the conversation!

I can remember doing weekly tests in English, arithmetic and something called intelligence every Friday in preparation for the 11+. Even then I used to find the intelligence tests infuriating because it was obvious to me that many questions could have a variety of answers that were all correct, depending on the criteria, but when the papers were marked, only one answer was acceptable.

In answer to the old men question, quite a lot of anatomical answers from livers to navels, would be correct. Some, such as teeth or fingers, wouldn't. Bald heads is equally obviously incorrect but wrinkles would be right.

Other answers might be fewer years ahead of them than behind them; the inevitability of death; and the fact that they are not old women.

My son went to grammar and my daughter to comprehensive, there was no comparison, the sheer size of classes and quality of teachers was so much worse in the comprehensive.

My daughter still did very well and went on to get first in Pharmacy at Bath but it was down to our help and encouragement and very little from the school. The Head admitted to me they have to cater for the majority who will under achieve.

I suppose we are lucky in as much as we have the top 2 grammars in the country in our area, so I can only comment on that.

I have never heard of such a stupid question in all my life,how on earth can you get the question right what about,heart brain spine lungs stomach etc,the mind boggles.??

celebgran If the head admitted that "they have to cater for the majority who will under achieve", then the head clearly wasn't catering. Had he or she been doing so, the majority would not have under achieved.

do agree !! dread to think what questions are now.

absentgrana I think I was trying to be polite, what he meant was that there is only so much you can do some people will never have the ability to achieve academically, that does not mean they will not go on to lead useful lives and do well.

o gosh nanj no idea, we are looking at over 40 years ago!!

my brain not so sharp now I expect!!!

I'm afraid that, apart from the obvious, hairy ears sprang to my mind.

My brother is 3 years older than me, so coming up to the 11+ he gave me some appropriate questions. It turned out I was good at recognising patterns, so that helped too. My school was useless - only 2 of us out of 28 passed, but I'm sure more would have passed, if they had been able to practice with appropriate questions. In the end, three out of four in my family went to Grammar school - one went to secondary modern, but both brothers, the one who passed and the one who didn't, had equally good careers as engineers.

By the way, the secondary modern in Mirfield my oldest brother went to, was the same one that Sir Patrick Stewart, aka Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard went to. Don't know anyone famous from Heckmondwike Grammar though.

I certainly don't remember any trick questions like the old man question. I would have probably answered 'grey hair'.