Educating Monkey. Not quite.

"Alice has saved £10 more than Becky. Becky has saved £3 more than Charlie. Altogether Alice, Becky and Charlie have saved £26.50. How much has Alice saved?"

"Huh?"

"You have a minute"

"Are you alright?"

"How about this one? Ladybirds eat greenfly"

"What?"

"On one bush, there are enough greenfly to feed 9 ladybirds for 4 hours. How long would the greenfly last if there were only 6 ladybirds? How many bushes would be needed to feed 36 ladybirds for 2 hours?"

"Hang on"

"1 minute"

"Aren't you too old to be taking the GRE?"

"45 seconds"

"Have you gone mad?"

"Try this one. Here is a pie chart which shows 64 cars that passed this way. The section that has Red cars - the angle is 45 degrees. How many red cars passed this way?"

"What is going on?"

"Wait, I got few ones here that you can give to kids you interview. Estimate the mass of a tennis ball"

"Most kids I interview don't get mass"

"How about this? Estimate the amount of water in a full kettle"

"I don't think I know the answer to that"

"Like you know everything else. Looks at these shapes and tell me which ones have the same perimeter"

"Enough. Out with it"

"Oh come on, do this one. There are 30 children in Mrs Patel’s Year 6 class. 8 of them are wearing glasses.12 of them are wearing a watch. 7 of them are wearing both glasses and a watch. How many are wearing neither glasses nor a watch?"

"Oh wait, I think I know what you are up to"

"Really? Glen is older than Florence.
Ahmed is older than Zara but younger than Florence.
Oliver is younger than Glen but older than Zara.
Yasmin is younger than Glen.
Ahmed is older than Oliver.
Florence is younger than Yasmin.
Which of these six friends is the youngest?"

"Confirmed. For some reason, you are going to take the GMAT"

"Please. Don't insult fifth graders. I will give you quadratic equations and a neat one on engineering drawing in a second"

"Fifth graders don't do quadratic equations or engineering drawing. Neither do people who take the GMAT but thats besides the point"

"Goes on to prove why you will never get to sixth grade in this country. Just like me. I will never pass this exam. And I am not exactly bad at Math"

"Lets not get too carried away. As far as I know, you haven't managed to prove a single theorem that matters regardless of umpteen years of research and training and what not"

"There's that, yes"

"But what exam is this?"

"11+ years. To get into sixth grade. I don't remember doing most of this before sixth grade."

"But why exactly are you trying to get into sixth grade?"

"I am not. But someone else needs to"

"Who?"

"Monkey"

"Monkey is one year old"

"Exactly. So unlike you and me, it definitely has to get to sixth grade. Unless you have decided it needs no education"

"Wait. You are taking 11+ test because monkey has to do it in 10 years?"

"Well, not quite. I did try to do something useful"

"Such as?"

"Such as trying to find schools to put its name in. But then I got interested in how the system works and some website had last year's question paper"

"I see"

"But its good that we looked at it"

"We?"

"Okay, I. At least we know now monkey is never going to get into sixth grade in this country. But what I am really interested in is what they teach in school after that"

"What else is there?"

"Well, there is always calculus I suppose"

"In seventh grade?"

"Why not? Maybe this is some new attempt at catching up with Asian kids"

"But Asian kids don't learn calculus in seventh grade"

"That's what we think but maybe we are ancient"

"We are ancient but I still don't think Asian kids learn calculus when they are 13"

"You don't know anything. Oh hang on!"

"What happened now?"

"I just thought of something. I am looking at the English paper. Go away"