High school exam blunder sees local cafe slammed by students
A café manager fears her Melbourne business could go under as a result of a bizarre blunder in a Year 12 English exam.
Calmer Café’s five-star rating has taken a beating after the VCE English exam asked 43,000 students to analyse a scathing review of a fictional coffee shop that had a “tablet-wielding” employee with a manbun who served burnt coffee and “exhaustive list of frappes, soy and almond milks”.
The only problem being that fictional café actually shares a name with a café/wine bar in the suburb of Aberfeldie, in the state’s north-west.
Not long after Tuesday’s examination finished, workers at the small business were trying to understand why their Facebook page was being inundated with negative reviews from people who had never even been there.
“Some ignoramous (sic) with a man bun served me the mooost (sic) disgusting coffee and wouldn’t put his tablet down the whole time I was speaking. I’d find better coffee at tulla airport!” one review said.
“I wrote about this in my exam and it seems that this is a terrible cafe with poor service,” one student posted.
“This is going to destroy my ATAR,” another wrote.
Café manager Elise Jenkins urged students not to take their frustrations out on their small business, saying they rely heavily on good word of mouth and positive reviews to stay afloat.
“People are writing on our Facebook page and putting bad ratings,” Manager Elise Jenkins told the Herald Sun.
“People are writing that we have disgusting food — we’re just a small business… I don’t know what to do.”
Despite all the negative publicity, Calmer Cafe holds no grudge against those responsibly, offering a free coffee to any student who mentionts “THAT question”.
A spokesperson for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority said they had apologised to the cafe for the mistake and that they were helping in having the relevant reviews removed.
“The VCAA has been in contact with Calmer Cafe management and understands the posts have caused the business considerable effort and inconvenience,” he said.
“The VCAA has apologised for the inadvertent similarity in business names that led to the surge of social media and web posts, and has offered its assistance to have these posts removed as soon as possible.”
