You're making me test-y!

A senior (one of my juniors from last year) came to me in a panic before the first bell this morning. She was one of the many scheduled for today's re-take of the state exit exam due to the fact that she, well, didn't pass it the first time. She wanted me to tell her what she should do in order to pass.

"Gee, Britonnee, maybe you should finish the whole test in 30 minutes. If that doesn't work, then try missing 18 days of school. Go out of your way to talk constantly during class. Turn in none of the homework that reinforces what was taught in class. And--I can't stress this enough--avoid all journal prompts that I gave you to prepare for the writing portion of the test.

Of course this will be all for naught, if your parents ever respond to my countless e-mails and phone calls I make because of my concern that you're not putting your best foot forward. So please, make sure they don't.

Wait a second, you did all that last year and still failed. Scratch all that then. What you're going to have to do is this. First, go backwards in time like that one time--where you reversed the Earth on its axis--so that you could go back and save Lois Lane's life, wait--that was just a movie that I saw once. Disregard."

Remembering that Britonnee slept through my unit on sarcasm, I decided to just stick with the standard, "Take your time, go back and check your answers and don't forget a pencil."

For those of you that think that wasn't the proper advice, let me simply say that you weren't there to see her smiling proudly, holding up her red map pencil immediately after receiving my sage advice.