This is very strange:

English teachers are demanding an apology over the "worst ever" Shakespeare question in a test sat by 630,000 pupils last week.

The 14-year-olds taking the compulsory exam on the Bard were asked in the paper on Macbeth to write as if they were agony aunts for a teenage magazine.

The question, in the paper devised by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, told the pupils: "In Macbeth, Banquo warns Macbeth about the witches' influence. You give advice in a magazine for young people.

"You receive this request: 'Please advise me. I have recently moved school and made some new friends. I like spending time with them but my form tutor thinks my work is suffering. What should I do? Sam.'

"Write your advice to be published in the magazine."

Bethan Marshall, a lecturer in English at King's College, London, said it was "the silliest question I have ever seen. It is a pointless, contrived link with the play which could be answered without any reference to it," she said.

Trevor Millum, of the National Association for the Teaching of English, asked: "What has this got to do with Shakespeare?"

I distinctly remember an exam at Essex University which was supposed to be about computer programming, which was actually a mere intelligence test. I'd done no computer programming work all year, but passed with flying colours.

Macbeth contains one of my favourite quotes of all, which I can imagine a lot of teachers liking, because it sums up their entire lives, or what they hope is their entire lives:

Thou shalt get kings though thou be none.

This is said by the Third Witch, to Banquo. The First Witch: "Lesser than Macbeth, and greater" – just before the quote above – is almost as good.