Accidentally Spilt or Splashed?

He accidentaly __________ a glass of water on the table.

a. spilt

b. threw

c. poured

d. splashed

above was the 3rd question in the recent UPSR paper 1. First look at it, I'd say the answer would be "a" with the reasons being; it's an accidental act and the water was in a container (glass is a kind of container right?).

So like half hour ago my head of department gave me a copy of both paper 1 and 2-if I wanted my year 5s to try them. A colleague looked at it and asked me the answers for the questions. So when I said that the 3rd question's answer was "a", my head of department said that she heard from teachers from other school, who referred to someone they called "an expert teacher" that the answer is "d".

So the arguement started.

I did ask Gruffy which one was the right one when I finished invigilating exam last week cos I saw tons of kids chose "d. splashed" instead of "a.spilt". He said he'd used them both before but thought "a." was a more accurate answer.

Like I mentioned above, I was 100% sure, I still am sure that the answer is "spilt" because it's an accidental act and that the water was in a glass. Gruffy also said that you don't "splash" water in glass. Honestly, I never really used the word "splashed" before for accidental events like drinks spilling on the table. To me it's a word that I would use when someone really does "splashing water" act to me.

ok, clearly I am not your excellent English teacher...whatmore an expert. But below are the definitions I got from Oxford online and I am gonna submit an inquiry about this - there's no way I'm letting this go easily, I want a legit answer so I don't teach my kids the wrong thing!

spill1
• verb (past and past part. spilt or spilled) 1 flow or cause to flow over the edge of a container. 2 move or empty out from a place. 3 informal reveal (confidential information).

splash

• verb 1 (with reference to a liquid) fall or cause to fall in scattered drops. 2 make wet or cover with scattered drops. 3 strike or move around in water, causing it to fly about. 4 (splash down) (of a spacecraft) land on water. 5 display (a story or photograph) in a prominent place in a newspaper or magazine. 6 (splash out) Brit. informal spend money freely.

care to explain?

Becoming a Gator

it was almost 9 months ago (no, I am not pregnant you sickos) that I had my meeting with my prospective advisor, Dr. Lamme. It was a good meeting, her feedback was nothing short than good and she has emailed me once I was back in Malaysia to ask the status of application. It was rather embarassing to admit to her at the time cos I just only took my GRE and hadn't started on my application at all but having an already Gator fiance helps to put me back on track and finally today I started parts of the application.

As you might have already figured out, I am an English teacher and I teach Primary TESL. Having that as a background, most people around me assume that I was going to further studies in the same field. Not quite. I have a strong love and passion for children's literature and storytelling. I won't say what's my ultimate career goal is but it does revolve around those. UF happens to have the exact course I want - it was as if they took the measurement straight for my body and tailormade my wedding dress,figuratively speaking. It's perfect. So we arranged to meet with Dr. Lamme to get more information and also to kind of put me in her book. I was ecstatic when she emailed me asking about the status of my application and other stuff - I took that as a sign that she remembered who I was and what we talked about.


My chosen graduate program is under the School of Teaching and Learning within the college of Education. I love the buildings and I also love how it's not that far from the Engineering building - it is actually quite a walk but the student center;cafes and what not are in between the engineering building and my future building so I could meet up with my husband (he will already be my husband then :) for lunch. What attracted me most to this program is that they try hard to gather literature sources for kids all around the world. Dr. Lamme told me they really want international grad students to join the program because more collaborative work could be done that way. They haven't had any from Malaysia (come to think of it i don't think there's a single Malaysian student at UF) so she kinda hinted that my chance of getting in is quite high. Fingers crossed - damn I hope I didn't just jinxed it!

So I re-read everything related to the program again and go through stuff I need to do and include for my application, including my not so impressive GRE scores. Hopefully it'll be enough to get me in - I'd feed the gators in the pond for one whole year if they accepted me with my horrible GRE scores! haha

I am gonna work on my essays with Gruffy this weekend. He's done this before and he landed himself a really good PhD programme - well mostly cos he's brilliant but the essays help of course. So he's gonna help me with it. Then I'd need to contact my undergrad professors again to ask for letter of recommendation. Too bad Howard isn't there anymore, but I still have Jo, Jan and I am sure they could suggest to me another professor who would write one for me. Once it's all done, we'll get it submitted and wait.

While waiting, I have some government contract stuff to settle and hopefully that one goes well too. So far things look promising but Gruffy and I have a backup plan for that. He always got my back, so I am not worried :)

I can't wait to finally be an official Gator. And head down to the locker room :P