A piece of cake

The final one-hour exam paper of my Philosophy degree course was due the next day. Traditionally the examiners sprung a surprise for this paper, for which it was impossible to prepare in advance. The idea was to see just how flexible and logical one’s mind was in tackling a philosophical concept. One year there had been just one line on the question paper, which was: “Is this a question?” One student got full marks by writing: “Yes, if this is an answer”, then going to sleep for the rest of the hour.

I saw one of my lecturers in the college bar that evening. He was gleefully knocking back whiskies while I consoled myself with a long-lasting half pint – not only were funds short but it would not have been a good idea to arrive hung over in the exam room the next morning. He came over to where I was and grinned at me. “You worried about the exam?” he said.

“You bet I am”, I said. “I know it’s only a few marks riding on this, but they could make all the difference”.

“Ah, don’t fret yourself”, the lecturer said. “It’ll be a piece of cake”.

That’s all right for you to say, I thought, you’re not the one who’s going to have to do the exam.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I lay awake for hours, trying to imagine what fiendish trick the Philosophy Department might play on this year’s students. “A piece of cake”, the guy had said. “A piece of cake”. All very well for him …

A vivid dream. I was there in the exam room with my five fellow finalists. The exam tables did not have the usual question papers laid on them as we walked in, but white cloths neatly spread over them. We sat down and the presiding examiner said, “You may remove the cloth on your table”.

Under each cloth was a white china plate, and on each plate was – a piece of cake. That was it. No question paper, just a few sheets for one’s answer and a piece of cake. I noticed that each piece was different – I had a reasonably generous slice of Victoria sponge and I could see that my colleague to the left had Dundee cake and to the right there was a small piece of carrot cake. The other plates contained date and walnut, lemon drizzle and chocolate sponge, some pieces being considerably larger than others.

So that was it. The exam really was a piece of cake, or six pieces to be precise. What can you do with a piece of cake? The obvious thought is to eat it, but surely there was more to it than that. The student with the carrot cake did eat his, and then looked around at the other plates with their more generous portions. Some of us clearly wondered whether we might have preferred a different kind of cake, and gave envious looks towards the other plates. One student stood up and offered the carrot cake student a broken-off piece of their own cake, while two others negotiated a direct swop.

It soon became clear to all of us that there was a lot going on here in terms of the ethics of possession and social behaviour, and maybe questions to do with the theory of knowledge, such as how one can know that one action will be more satisfying than another, or even what the mental processes are in deciding the relative qualities and quantities of different objects without having the means to perform definitive tests. This was a proper philosophy exam after all.

But then I woke up and realised that dreams do not match reality and the mystery exam still had to be faced. The six of us therefore walked into the exam room expecting nothing more than a standard question paper with a particularly nasty surprise or two.

But that was not what happened. There on the tables were six white cloths, just as in my dream. Had the lecturer really been giving me a clue, and the exam was actually a piece of cake? I lifted the cloth and discovered that this was not the case.

The exam was a ham sandwich.

© John Welford