Attic of opportunity

In my early teens, I sat a maths exam to try to win a scholarship to an elite boarding school. My buddy M., known more for banter than mathematical acumen, insisted on joining me in the attempt. On the plus side, his parents drove us to the venue, so my oldies copped a break. As for the test...there were some questions I could answer confidently, some I could only partially solve and some that left me stumped. After the examination, they asked everyone to wait around while they marked the papers. Then, a select few lads (and their chaperones) were invited to stay, while the rest of us were thanked for coming and told we could go home. Obviously, those boys whose names were called had scored the highest and would be further tested and/or interviewed until the scholarship was decided. M. and I simply hadn't made the grade. This was confirmed when we discussed our answers - or lack of. But that didn't stop my chancer of a pal, a day or two later, claiming a representative from the school had phoned him personally to say he'd "only just missed out". You don't have to be a maths genius to calculate the likelihood of such a scenario.