Errors from the NYS English Regents Exam

On the Regents exam which was administered last week, there was a listening passage about Nellie Bly, in which she out-did Jules Verne's 80 day trek around the world. The students had to listen to a lengthy passage (twice) and then write a talk about Nellie Bly as a female role model.

These are some of the spellings of Jules Verne's name:

Jewels Vern
Jooles Vern
Julius Fern
Jews Burned (sorry, but there were two kids who wrote that)
Tools Fern
Jewl's Vaughn
Julius Irving

The word "chaparone" was also mentioned in the listening passage. Here are a few of the spellings we got of that word:

shapparone
shapperon
chopper one
shop around
shopper own


I can't wait to start grading Part Two. That requires the students to compare two literary works. I'll never forget the kid who wrote: "William Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET tells the story of two families: the Molecules and the Corpuscles" and "TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD is the story about a bird that flies in peoples' windows and rearranges the furniture".

I'm not making any of this up!

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I feel your pain, Dolly. I'm grading some of my finals as I type (I'm a master multi-tasker), and some of the spelling and grammar are jaw-dropping. My supposed "advanced" class have written things my three-yeart-old could've done.

Only an 83? Hmmmmm.........I would have done much better than that.

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It could have been worse. My father could have been proctoring and he would have given "THE LOOK". Just raising one eyebrow would stop anyone in their tracks.

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For your amusement, I will now post a response a student made in my short answer section, regarding Long Day's Journey Into Night. I informed the kids that an acceptable short answer must be at least one well-developed paragraph.

Q: "What does the foghorn represent?"

A: "A loud noise."

Oh dear, I hope my answers weren't that bad when I took the regents...

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Please tell me you're kidding about Tequilla Mockingbird. Please.

Bartender may I have one Tequila Mockingbird and easy on the mockingbird please its a bit fowl...

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Ouch...makes me very proud of my 99. The one thing I got wrong, I don't remember exactly but on a mult. choice question I saw the word tornado in an answer and thought it was hurricane for some reason...always make stupid mistakes like that.

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Oh, we actually did a bit of AP mult choice at the beginning of the year but spent all of the first semester prepping for the regents which we took in january, then the second half for the AP. I got a 4, I was proud, English isn't my strongest subject.

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This is not really intentionally to you Dolly or other teachers, but I always wondered if when you go to a dentist or a doctor if they are like in a party and talking about patients

Doc- Yea, so this one guy's penis...

Den- This lady has like 14 root canals...

I always think this when i'm at a doctor or dentist appointment.

That is horrifying. And yet, if I had a fern, I would CERTAINLY name it Julius!

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I had to stop grading some of my finals today because I thought I was going to become violently ill.