EASY FOE HIM

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 12, 16 January 1933, Page 8

EASY FOE HIM

EXAMINATION KINK

•An enviable record ,of scholastic merit is held by Mr. Clifford George Jarrett, "the man who cannot fail in an examination." He is only 22 years old. His latest triumph in the examination room is the gaining of "firsts" in all three departments of the first division Civil Service examination, the Indian, the Home, and the Diplomatic and Consular.

Dover is Mr.- Jarrett's home town. His father is a photographer there, and it was at St. Mary's School, Dover, that he first revealed his genius for examinations. He won a free scholarship to Dover County School, where he gained all the honours a boy could gain—not only academically, but at games as well. Then he won a State scholarship to Cambridge University and a major scholarship as well. He went up to Sidney Sussex College, and for four years went steadily along from one examination triumph to another. He;obtained a first in modern languages arid then a first in the history,tripos. After that he did a little quiet study in between playing cricket and football —and achieved' the triple distinction which led -recently to his appointment to a first, division clerkship at the Home Office. When asked how he did it he modestly explained that he bad a "kink" for examinations.

"Really it is nothing," he added. "I won't pretend it did not mean some work—but, well, it just depends. Some people crumple up, however much they know, as soon as they get in the examination room. And others don't. I have the latter 'kink.' I never believe in burning the midnight oil. Six hours' bard swotting^work is enough for any man. I have never opened a book for study purposes after midnight. ' ' There is nothing of the bookworm about him. He is an athletic young man with a shy engaging smile. "Now I am getting on with my job," he said, "and, of course, I hope to rise in tie Civil Service. I took the three departments so that I might stand more chance of a vacancy. There was one at the Home Office, and at Homo Office I am.

"My examinations have certainly involved a lot of reading, but I am still an ill-read man. There is so much reading on any subject that, really, there is no time. I don't know when my next examination will be or whether I shall take any more. But ...'-»