SOLVED. fiction, read 1987. Children jostle to see elite-society exam result noticeboard; boy sees he has failed, escapes to remote place, returns months/years later with motorcycle and girl, observes elite from outside some tent-like structure. [s]

[Hugh]

Possibly dystopian. Read it in 1987, seemed like the book might have been at least a couple of years old when I read it.

I've tried telephoning the library, but they couldn't help.

[Rainbowheart]

It's a super long list, but YA Dystopia Novels is pretty comprehensive. Does anything there look familiar?

[Genesistrine]

Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall?

Ed: though that has the twist that he gets 100% in his exams, in spite of a friendly teacher warning him that that would be a really bad idea. It was. He becomes the assistant to the old man who created the AI that runs this society. He runs away and falls for a girl who races bikes; he realises that the bikes are deliberately designed to be dangerous to kill or injure their riders. At the end he returns to destroy the AI and...

[Hugh]

Woah, Futuretrack 5 may just be it - this cover feels familiar: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/1...

I'll try and find some text to confirm it with, the first act with the exam results is the clearest memory.

Thank you so so much!

[Hugh]

A used copy is on it's way to me; will let you know how it goes.

[SamSpayedPI]

Hugh wrote: "Woah, Futuretrack 5 may just be it - this cover feels familiar: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/1...

I'll try and find some text to confirm it with, the first act with the exam resul..."

Futuretrack 5 is available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/futuretra...

You need to be a member to borrow books, but membership is free; you only need to give them an email address.

[Genesistrine]

Hugh wrote: "A used copy is on it's way to me; will let you know how it goes."

Good luck!

[Hugh]

Genesistrine wrote: "Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall?

Ed: though that has the twist that he gets 100% in his exams, in spite of a friendly teacher warning him that that would be a really bad idea. It wa..."

This is indeed the book I was seeking. Thank you for solving a decades-long mystery!

[Genesistrine]

Cheers Hugh!