High Standard of English in Cambridge

Yesterday's papers reported about the weak grasp of English from the undergrads in Imperial College. One of the tutors highlighted some of the blunders:

"...occcurs, ocour, occurence, occuring, occured and occures - all used in essays that were checked before being handed in."

"..herd instead of heard, fourth instead of forth, been instead of bean,"

"and many of the writers were 'hopeless at punctuation'. "

I thought to myself, "No, I won't make that kinda mistake."

Feeling confident was one thing but being pointed out that I was over-confident was another.

This is what happened...

I took my dissertation to be proofread by one of the English tutors in my College, Dr S, since I had some time to kill while waiting for my supervisor to come back from his long vacation. Besides, it will only benefit me by getting a second opinion for my report.

Dr S wrote me an email yesterday and told she has received my printed draft and may take some time to proofread the whole report. She added that it was a smooth read overall. (I can't believe she finished reading 15,000 words within two hours!!! That's amazing!)

This afternoon, I received half the report fully marked by Dr S. I was really impressed by her speed of marking. She probably thought I needed it done quickly. But whatever it is, I am sure she did not do it in haste just by looking at the level of marking on the papers! Each page of the A4 that the report was printed on were scribbled with corrections and suggestions. It turned out like an art actually. Hahaha!

"Don't be nice, Dr S. Be very strict in your marking and tell me if it's bad. I want to learn and improve."

Initially I felt horrible upon learning that my English was awful. My swollen confidence has obviously burst this time! But I was nevertheless satisfied and in fact, very happy to know the weaknesses and errors that have passed me for ages. Dr S managed to point them out today and I am so thankful for that. None on spelling errors, but many on punctuations, sentence structuring and articulation.

I pondered a while after reading the marked report, "My God...the standard of English in Cambridge is so high!" The almost impeccable IELTS score last year must have only qualified me to the kindergartens if Dr S's standards applied. Now I wish I have another year in Cambridge to "graduate" to Dr S's level of English, then I'd be more confident writing for next year's National Essay competition.