I just finished sixth form,

And did my H.S.C.

I'm not quite yet a genius,

But as clever as can be,

I got my result notice,

I did a thousand questions,

And didn't get one right.

Percentile bands and aggregates,

Is all a load of crap,

You'd need a PhD in maths,

To figure out all that,

All that really worries me,

Is did I pass or fail,

And will my father shake my hand,

Or kick me in the tail.

We learned in 2A English,

How Chaucer wrote 'Macbeth'

We took J. Alfred Prufrock,

And flogged him half to death,

We did the Aussie writer Dawe,

Our poet was soon Donne,

(That last line was an anagram,

Or possibly a pun)

I must say Aldous Huxley,

Was really quite a bore,

I didn't like the way that he wrote,

Nineteen Eighty Four,

I didn't like Ted Hughes,

Or his Canterbury Tales,

It looks like 2A English,

Is one subject I failed.

My next subject was Physics,

I think it was my best,

It took just thirty minutes,

For the whole three hour test,

Some questions were quite difficult,

And if I had a doubt,

I went on to the next one,

And left the last one out.

The figures floated in my head,

My thinking was quite quick,

"These questions have no answers,

It surely is a trick",

I finished off my paper,

And I discovered then,

With all the questions skipped,

I hadn't touched my pen.

Then came General Studies,

Which was quite easy for me,

For study all I had to do,

Was watch the ABC,

Watch all the documentaries,

And don't miss 'Nationwide',

That was my best study plan,

I hardly even tried.

I followed closely to my plan,

And who would ever think,

A week before the H.S.C.

The tele's on the blink,

I handed in my paper,

My heart filled with contempt,

The examiner wrote on it,

Quite clearly "No Attempt".

All year in Economics,

We learnt of the recession,

But when it came exam day,

My brain was in depression,

I couldn't recall what I knew,

Of Campbell and his mates,

Or how deregulation,

Would push up interest rates.

But 99 is one great mark,

And no reason to frown,

Until I find I'm holding,

The notice upside down,

A telegram came in the mail,

With words that spelt out terror,

It seems even my 66,

Came from computer error.

I'm good at writing essays,

So I did Modern History,

That Bismarck started World War One,

Was nothing of a mystery,

While Hitler went to Russia,

To start a revolution,

Marx was making studies,

Of Aryan evolution.

Napoleon roamed all around,

His armies were quite big,

He was beaten by the Cubans,

When he went to Bay of Pigs,

Apparently my knowledge,

Was much worse than I thought,

When I got back my history mark,

It was, quite frankly, nought.

With maths I really had to try,

My teacher said "It's sad,

That you have got to sixth form,

And still you cannot add",

Logarithms were real bad,

And calculus was rotten,

I'd teach you trigonometry,

Except that I've forgotten.

We did 3D geometry,

And angles between lines,

And quadratic parabolas,

That had to be defined,

I was feeling very confident,

I really liked the test,

And when I got it back,

My mark was double all the rest.

I must make a confession,

My score was not that great,

My zero from five hundred,

Was lowest in the state,

Now I work for the government,

The cheque comes in two weeks,

And all I do to earn it,

Is sit around the beach.