There was a period, at the tail end of Primary 6 and the start of Primary 7, when certain of the teachers at my school would be looking a tad more tired at the end of the week. Not because they were being too stressed at work, but because they were out doing tuition after school to get kids through the 11+.

I never had such tuition; instead we had old practice books in the house and by God we were to practice. But it shows how seriously people worked to prepare for that simple two-paper test, and how much rested on it. (‘course, it’s now disappearing from Norn Iron without any idea what follows, but that’s not the point.)

So it was with some trepidation that I approached the BBC sample test, which puts 11+ style questions to people who should really be able to walk through it.

Managed a respectable score (90+%) and a decent time (5 minutes), but the fact that I still got something wrong on it tells me that I ain’t as smart as I think I am…