Amusing uses of English: Lucas' test. I'm just marking tests from my Upper Intermediate 2 group and I came across a gem from Lucas, a half-Japanese, half-Brazilian teenager. I simply had to put it on here for a wider audience to enjoy. I've written it out all below including his errors. His answer moves from the amusing to the surreal to the sensible. I gave him a mark of 17/20. Some accuracy problems, but he was creative!

Question: Write about this topic - Men and women: differences and similarities. Mention personality, characteristics, natural talents, job situations, basic rights etc.

Women's bathroom, men's bathroom.

Men and women don't have many differences, both of them have legs, arms, nose and eyes. But what I can't understand is why the bathrooms are so different? The men's bathrooms are, usually, small have few toilets and sinks. Whatever the women's bathrooms have more of all of it and, sometimes, have chairs or puffs, to they relax.

Differences like this make our minds work in opposite way. Men have a global view, they can look and remind stuffs. They have a better concentration when working at one thing like reading or listening to musics. Women have a better close view. They can find the butter, when the man was looking it for a long time, and it was in front his nose, and their can pay attention in a lot of things: take care the baby, and the dinner and answer the phone in the same times.

Our culture doesn't use the best talents of men and women. In the job, men earn more than women, in spite of the fact they work together, in the same department. If we could be able to use the differences, probably the world will be better, very better.

Lucas