Politicians, preachers, lawyers, bureaucrats and, one suspects, journalist-novelists like himself, also flunk his test of masculinity by engaging in namby-pamby occupations.

ECONOMIST: Atlanta burnt again

Asked at the start of the test, if would-be motorists flunk the questions it will count as one driving fault out of the maximum of 15 allowed before a fail.

BBC: L-plate

The Massachusetts Board of Education, for example, fearing most students would flunk, has voted to set low passing scores--just above failing--for a new test students must take to graduate from high school.

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In the event, for all the nastiness, buck-passing and back-biting this mass of material exposes, it only reinforces Mr Pollard's conclusions: that the BBC's lines of accountability were deeply flawed and that members of its lavishly paid and top-heavy management saw it as their priority, in a crisis, to flunk responsibility rather than take it.

BBC: Savile inquiry: Media reaction to BBC transcripts

Reynolds Tobacco (nyse: RJR - news - people ), Caterpillar (nyse: CAT - news - people ), Dow Chemical (nyse: DOW - news - people ), Cooper Industries (nyse: CBE - news - people ), Wells Fargo (nyse: WFC - news - people ) and Electronic Data Systems (nyse: EDS - news - people ), claims that more than two-thirds of existing plans at the biggest U.S. companies would flunk the new tests.

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