Another One Of My Theories

I survived finals week and everything that comes with it, I think. Probably the most significant thing was I didn’t suffer a heart attack from putting inhumanly amounts of coffee into my system.

I know all of you remember what I said about me not studying for my finals and true to my word I didn’t hit many books. My extreme coffee intake was because I had to get up so damn early almost every day. For someone that already has trouble sleeping; waking up before I’m ready isn’t very cool. It was still dark out when I woke up and when I turned on the TV for light, I found out yet another rerun of Sports Center airs right before Mike and Mike in the Morning. I could have lived my entire life without knowing that and would have been perfectly happy.

What pissed me off the most about finals was the disparity of attendance between regular class days and finals days. I would be one of those who attended class regularly, sat in the same seat every day, right next to the same girl on my left who was always unknowingly helpful whenever I had a question. (She was good-looking too but that’s beside the point) Not only was I left without a seat, the class was so packed that the only option left was to find the most comfortable place to curl up on the floor and take your test. What type of teacher forgets to have enough desks available on finals day? Words cannot describe the sudden anger that resonated in my body. It was of pure hate and the kids in my seat must have sense the anger pouring out of me because as soon as I strode over to them they looked like Marc Bulger in the pocket scampering and scrambling for their lives.


They’re certain test-taking skills one most possess if they want to excel in any type of school environment. One is to go through the test and answer all the easy questions first, then go back and work the harder ones. I’ve found this way you might find the meaning of a word or concept within another question and that could in turn answer a harder question by itself. Another is when you definitely aren’t certain of the answer you can try to eliminate any answers that could never in a million years be the correct one, to improve guessing odds. Well, by using these obvious strategies on my finals, I think I did fairly well and hopefully achieved the grade range I set for myself on each one. However, recently it was made know to me that someone I know scored a 1/50 on a multiple choice test. That is by far the lowest grade I’ve seen ever besides a 0. I have a theory, and it’s going to sound weird at first but you’ll have to let me explain. I believe this person, who got the -49, actually is extremely smart. I can’t think of any reason to brag about this humiliating score, but it dawned on me that this kid in question could actually be smarter than he’s played out to be. Check it out, on a 50 question test, with the only possible answers as A, B, C, D, if you answer all C’s like straight down the line you’re guaranteed at least a 12%. My logic would be even if the test was in an unrecognizable hieroglyphic language, I’d still be smart enough to bubble in all A’s like straight-ticket voting, and get much better than a 2%.

So, this kid actually knew all the answers all along but purposely put down the wrong answers for some unknown reason which explains the 2%. I call this theory the “BrainlessSmart” theory. Apparently, though ill-advised, my “BrainlessSmart” theory has some unforeseeable advantages that would make someone have to use it. If you come across a situation where the theory could apply to you, let me hear about it, I’m dying to know…