Tricky past participles

Looking at some unusual features of past participles.

THE results of the SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) examination were out. I got a ’phone call from my dear friend Shirley Lee. She was a little flustered over a newspaper report on the high achievers – not about the many students who got 12 A’s, the many others that got 11 A’s, and even more who got 10 A’s, in different combinations of A+, A, and A-. It was the repetitive and prosaic use of the verb got that got on poor Shirley’s nerves. Why not say, for example, bagged 6 A’s, obtained 8 A’s, scored 9 A’s, achieved 10 A’s, etc?