Eleven Plus Print

An awful lot of Eleven Plus children, and their parents, will be blaming Gutenberg for all their problems. He produced his printing press around 1456. He printed a copy of the Bible – and before the century was over books were being produced all over Europe.

Before the books came along family history and events were all communicated orally. Teachers and priests had less influence as people found that they could educate themselves.

By the mid sixteenth century teachers were spending more time teaching reading than passing on the oral history of the land. Since the sixteenth century the written examination has become a key part in testing the effectiveness of teaching – and also the ability of students to be able to write examinations.

Then big changes came to challenge the effectiveness of the written word. Photographs were invented, the Morse code was used for communication, movies changed from silent to talking, T.V. arrived – along with the computers, digital newspapers – and even the blog.

There have been such big changes in the last fifty years that it may be time to challenge the effectiveness of the Eleven Plus examination is being able to select the very brightest in the land.

I should imagine that Gutenberg was very proud of his press – and he may have been overwhelmed to see the proliferation of print that is born every day. What would he have felt about?

Which letter of the alphabet comes immediately before the sixth letter of the fifth word in this sentence?