I am reading ‘Bridge To Terabithia’, and its descriptions of school, of the subtle dynamics of school hierarchy and rivalries reminded us of something that happened at school in my last year. We were about to take our ‘mock’ A-levels. I was a good student, I enjoyed learning, and although I was never the best, I was good enough. Still, I had moments, brief ones, where I suddenly flew high enough to eclipse those at the top of the food chain. Take Giles, who had been groomed – no, born, to study Mathematics at Cambridge, like his brother before him. I loved the class, but I didn’t understand the problems intuitively the way he did. I had to sweat over them, pore over the answers and any understanding I gained was fleeting. For the exam, I decided on a strategy, to get old exam papers, and solve those problems as revision. It didn’t take long to see that the same problems, or variants came up over and over. So that’s what I did, and I emerged from the exam feeling confident that I had done well. A few weeks later it was Giles himself who rushed up to me breathlessly “youbeatmeontheexamyougot98%!! Ionlygot97%!!!” he said in a rush. Of course I was delighted, but I feel a certain shame at the result ~ it’s not as though I had 98% worth of understanding of the subject, I had a strategy that paid off, and continued to pay off in all my exams, A-Levels and University too. I could blame the system as a whole but alas it is (was) what it was, and life does not offer such opportunities to prepare for the tests it throws at you.