FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES

The following authentic (what teacher would have the wit to make them up?) gems (i.e., schoolboy howlers) have been gleaned from various exam papers that have been submitted to me over the years by students. This list represents the best of them and omitted are those perennial favorites where the medieval peasants are misnamed 'pheasants'or Austria becomes Australia. They should raise a chuckle!

  1. Auto von Bismarck

  2. China had confusion as a religion

  3. Russia was heavily involved with economic weakness

  4. Peasants owned a vast number of land which wasn't even theirs

  5. Britain's main exports was tea

  6. China was a loner in the 19th century, a sole surviving country

  7. Africa was a continent whose government wore many hats

  8. By 1930 the Nazis had won approx. 17.5 seats in parliament

  9. Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fetus"

  10. In March 1936 Hitler sent his troops into the Rainland

  11. Marx's Communist Fiesta

  12. Before the passage of the Repeal of the Combinations Act in Britain in 1824, labor was denied any benefits such as medical and dental

  13. Egypt was a state in the continent of England

  14. Hitler first arrived on the political scene in 1923 with the notoriety he gained from his involvement in the French revolution

  15. In 1870 the coastal trade pushed up the Niger and caused Africa to become flooded

  16. The Archduck Francis Ferdinand

  17. The population of China was about 99% Chinese and the other half Manchu

  18. Very slowly yet strategically Hitler acquired divine power

  19. The socialist theorist Mark Engels

  20. The (Berlin) Conference (1884-5) came about because of a wall that was built to separate . . . north and south Germany

  21. Britain took over many African continents

  22. Russia was ruled by a lot of rulers. First by Peter the Great from Pitsburg

  23. The mongrels invaded China and displaced the emperor

  24. The government of England was a limited mockery

  25. The Great War of 1914-18 swept away four former empires, one of which was Roman

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