I was sitting in my trial Higher School Certificate exam for English and I had reached the part of the test where you had to write an Essay or two.  During the year I had found it hard enough understanding the book we were studying so now I was really struggling my way through the essay questions. I remember taking a moment though to put my head up and look around a bit, maybe I was hoping that if I saw others doing it tough I might feel a little relief. Though I found myself focusing in on one student that was clearly doing it easy. What I saw was this guy in the row of desks beside me and one forward had this essay in the bag, he was calm and confidently writing page after page. Although what surprised me more than his confidence and calmness was the reason why he had these attributes.

Firstly, I like to point out his ability to get into the test whilst wearing a bum bag which clearly wasn’t allowed, a feat in itself. But the clincher was that he had a series of palm cards sticky taped together and on these cards was his pre-written essay that he was just copying.

He must have either had a fairly good idea what the essay question would be or he just had a really lucky guess as he looked to be quickly rewriting it word for word.