What’s wrong with my answers then? HOW COME I FAILED MY HUMAN BIOLOGY EXAMS? From Dr. Roland B. Toxeter, Exam results Appeal Board, Oxford University. 9th February 2011. Dear Mr.Chappell, Thank you for your query concerning your disappointment at failing your Bachelor’s degree in Human Biology.  You expressed your despair in some very colourful language, regarding your ‘F for Fail’ after what you call three hard years of dedicated research, though none of our lecturers can recall ever seeing you at their presentations.  Your main tutor, Dr. Denton believes however that you may be the chap who threw up on him as he passed the Student Union bar two days before the exam you ought to have then been revising for. You appear to have submitted no course work essays, or attended a single tutorial. Your absenteeism record is so profound that most lecturers and tutors felt your name had been added to the registers as a prank by the other students.  That you turned up to take part in the exams was quite a surprise to all, and an extra table was rushed in quickly to accommodate you.  I come now to the answers you gave, which prove to be the principle reason for your lack of success, despite your conviction you were “going to pass with flying colours as you so richly deserved.” Ten questions were given, and students were advised to answer any two they wished over the course of an uninterrupted three-hour invigilated examination. Questions included 1/. Examining the functions of the pancreas. 2/. Explaining why people lose their milk teeth so early in their growth and development.  3/. Demonstrating how the human heart is affected by heart diseases. You chose to answer none of these or the other seven optional questions offered to you.  Instead you chose to pencil in two additional questions of your own that you felt better disposed to reply with.  They were, as you may recall, and as I quote; “11/. What are little boys made of?” and 12/. “What are little girls made of?” Had your answers addressed these questions effectively, you might have gone some modest way to salvaging a degree from the wreckage that your grant-subsidized education amounted to at the expense of the tax-payers. However, your reply that little boys are made of “Snakes and slugs and puppy dogs tails’ demonstrated considerable lack of medical and scientific know how. How on Earth could mortal humans survive with organs and arteries made of any part of a canine, let alone its tail? You make no reference whatsoever to atoms, blood, plasma, bone, flesh, etc. You merely list these three items and leave the matter at that.  Your response to your latter question ran to the questionable hypothesise that girls are composed of “Sugar and Spice and all things nice.” Clearly a woman would dissolve once wetted by even the lightest shower of rain if she was created from sugar? You dare to add a reference to the Lancet from August 1997 to support your case, though no feature relating to your ludicrous theory appears in that or any such edition. I can only assume that you have somehow mistaken the illustrious journal for a comic of some description. After much close analysis of your minimalist answers my colleagues and I can only turn down your appeal and restate our assertion that you have failed in these examinations. You could resit your exams in three months if you wish to raise further smiles from us, but I see that you already have work now, so I wish you every success in your career in brain surgery.  Yours Sincerely, Dr. Roland B. Toxeter

Arthur Chappell .