Second year University French was mandatory in the Pre-med Science programme at the University of Manitoba. I had only one year of high school French in Saskatchewan. It soon became abundantly apparent that I was out of my depth and destined for disaster. Most of the class were from St. Boniface, taking the class to refine their own working language and to belong to the French Club that met regularly.
I was sitting with a senior student in the cafeteria eating my bag lunch and probably had a doleful look since my cause seemed hopeless at that stage and I saw no way out. He listened to my tale of woe, my putative career gradually eroding away in my mind, failure looming large. "Hey listen, " he said, " If you get out the old final exams in French for the last ten years you'll see that there is always 50 % of the mark for an essay in French. They give you a choice of topics and if you choose something like a " trip to the farm" it'll probably apply to a topic choice. I received a glimmer of hope from my rescuer, but I'm sure I looked dubious.
However , what that sage said was true! The topic choices in the old exam papers I reviewed included, An Exciting Experience, ( A Trip to the Farm ) , What You did Last Summer , (A Trip to the Farm ), An Enjoyable Journey, ( A Trip to the Farm ). This was the straw I was willing to grasp. Sure enough, the angel I met at lunch over my Baloney sandwich was right. Before the examination I carefully crafted a French essay, letter perfect, accent perfect, on A Trip to the Farm and memorized it.
I scraped through French with little to spare. I learned a lot that year. If you have a lot of cunning you can get by if you have a will and a way, but it's not a substitute for smart. The teacher who marked my paper must have wondered how a guy that dumb in the other 50% wrote an essay that was that perfect, and didn't cheat.
I was sitting with a senior student in the cafeteria eating my bag lunch and probably had a doleful look since my cause seemed hopeless at that stage and I saw no way out. He listened to my tale of woe, my putative career gradually eroding away in my mind, failure looming large. "Hey listen, " he said, " If you get out the old final exams in French for the last ten years you'll see that there is always 50 % of the mark for an essay in French. They give you a choice of topics and if you choose something like a " trip to the farm" it'll probably apply to a topic choice. I received a glimmer of hope from my rescuer, but I'm sure I looked dubious.
However , what that sage said was true! The topic choices in the old exam papers I reviewed included, An Exciting Experience, ( A Trip to the Farm ) , What You did Last Summer , (A Trip to the Farm ), An Enjoyable Journey, ( A Trip to the Farm ). This was the straw I was willing to grasp. Sure enough, the angel I met at lunch over my Baloney sandwich was right. Before the examination I carefully crafted a French essay, letter perfect, accent perfect, on A Trip to the Farm and memorized it.
I scraped through French with little to spare. I learned a lot that year. If you have a lot of cunning you can get by if you have a will and a way, but it's not a substitute for smart. The teacher who marked my paper must have wondered how a guy that dumb in the other 50% wrote an essay that was that perfect, and didn't cheat.
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