I didn’t go to Eton. I didn’t have quite the right genitalia with me to pass the entrance exam. I did, however, get onto their website. I was wondering what it takes – if you’re a boy – to get into such a prestigious institution, and the college helpfully publishes King’s Scholarship papers from previous years online. They don’t look much like exams, though. Some of these questions look suspiciously like comedy material.
Let’s have a gander at the General Paper 2 from last year, for example. The hilarity begins on page 2, with the printed note ‘[This page intentionally left blank]’ ensuring that the page is in fact not blank and therefore a paradox in and of itself.
When we get to part 2 of the test, we’re asked to compose a 700-word response to one of three following topics. Two are actually questions to respond to, which is good – and the third is ‘Beauty’. This test is asking 13- and 14-year-old boys to write eloquently ‘in whatever style seems appropriate’ on beauty. The only time I’ve heard a teen male even use the word is when shouting ‘Come on, you beauty!’ while walloping a football towards an open goal.
General Paper 1 from that same year asks plucky young students to create ‘the decision-making algorithm of a gazelle’ and to translate ‘British Equatorial Wingdingia’ as if it were a vitally important part of the Rosetta Stone.
Now, I know getting into Eton is a bit more difficult than claiming a place at your bog standard comprehensive, but I don’t remember my 11-plus being quite such a piss take. I can tell you how to calculate the circumference of a circle and what most of the abbreviations for chemical elements are. Ask me whether our understanding of the world is based entirely on sense perception and I’d probably run screaming from the exam hall.
Ultimately, I’ve realised that there’s something oddly appropriate about these little crazy hoops to jump through. I had my own moment of zen, if you will. Quite a few Old Etonians are, in fact, a bit bonkers. I think you need to be to pass such a bizarre set of tests.
There’s Hugh Laurie, one of our most quirky exports. Noted piss-taker (and drinker) Bear Grylls. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the man who rustled up some placenta paté live on Channel 4. And how could I forget good old Boris Johnson? If anyone could have aced that question on British Equatorial Wingdingia, it would certainly have been him.
Pictured: An Eton school boy ignores his non Eton attending peers
