Standardized testing is crap

For as long as I can remember, I have been a poor test-taker.

Due to this waning ability in standardized testing, I got my first C in 5th grade in math (shocking, I know), followed by a lackluster high school career, dotted with Cs and Ds (who really needs chemistry if you're not going to be, you know, like, a chemist?).

Whose fault was this? Mine? God, no. It's their fault!

Who are "they", you might ask?

"They" have their hand in just about everything. I mean, think about it. "They say it's going to rain" or "Well, you know what they say!" Nosy bastards.

Where did these punks come from and how did they get to be so powerful? Well, I have a theory.

Back in Colonial times, or possible the days of Yore, a bunch of townspeople got screwy off some mead, made a list of rules as a joke and then slipped it under the mayor's pillow. Thinking it was from the town's mafia, Mayor McCheese (that's right, it's a family name) read the following:

"They say...

...you may eat food that has fallen on the ground, as long as no longer than 5 seconds passes. Henceforth, this shall be known as the Five Second Rule."
...you may drive past an accident at 2 mph, slowing traffic behind you so you can get a better look at a situation that has nothing to do with you."
...you may tell on your brother for not not touching you."
...you must get a certain number of points on a test we will create in order for your educational career to advance to a higher level of learning."
...once you pop (as soon as Pringles are invented), you may not stop."

Now, these are just some of the rules that "they" came up with. The point is, we're still listening to "them"! I'm pretty sure the hippies had it right when they were talking about sticking it to the Man. The Man has got to be one of "them", as far as I'm concerned.

Wait, why was I talking about this?

.....................................................................................

Oh, right. Standardized tests are pure poppycock.

This all came up due to my recent GRE scores. (Now, I'd like to point out that the only "studying" done for this test was the night before said test was taken, so I can take a little bit of heat for that.) My verbals scores were pretty good and my math scores abysmal. Nothing out of the ordinary. What I found to be completely unacceptable were my average writing scores.

Call it ego or advanced mental deterioration, but I think I'm a good writer. Whether or not you like what I'm saying is not the point. I generally have good sentence structure, colorful word choice and like to add lots of commas for good measure. Apparently, none of that matters these days. These people want you to, you know, have a point and like, support it. And stuff.

As far as I'm concerned, having a point is overrated and I often go out of my way to not have one. And furthermore, we are out of peanut butter!