Mrs. Locke

I was reminded yesterday of those standardized tests we all had to take back in high school. You know, sit in a room for 4 hours pouring out mindless bullshit about some mind-numbingly boring short story we had to read, or answering math questions that were either so easy as to be done with our eyes closed or too hard to be answered by anyone taking the test. But my recollection yesterday had to do with the writing section. I don't know if any of you remember the way the writing section was evaluated but I remember being struck by the extremely strange scoring system. There was at least one test (maybe it was even the SAT, I'm not sure) that was graded on a scale of 0-6. While this seven point scale seems a little odd at first, upon closer analysis it makes even less sense. Why seven numbers? Wouldn't 0-5 make for a better numbering system? What I'd really love to know though, is how many people got 0's. It was damn near impossible to get a zero. Not only did your reply have to be totally off-topic, it also had to be vulgar or degrading. For example, if given the question "Explain a time in your life in which you have felt marginalized by the society around you and the ways in which you have attempted to overcome that," (a typically absurd question - yeah, I'm just going to pour out my life's story to some masochistic maniac sitting in a hospital-white room in the middle of NJ grading these things), and you responded, "I like the color red," that would be enough to earn you a 1.

So you are wondering, what triggered this memory of mine? As many of my friends from high school will attest, I was always suggesting doing ridiculous things, but never actually doing them - like going into that absurdly named clothing store "Anthropologie" and telling the manager that the store's name was spelled incorrectly. Anyway, yesterday, we got a new type of assignment for my philosophy class. We now have to respond to (and sometimes create) discussion questions about the reading material online prior to class. As soon as my professor discussed the assignment, I couldn't help but think about what it would take to get a 0 on one of these assignments given the scale of those standardized tests. Would, "Hume confueses the hell out of me," be enough, or would I have to try something stronger like, "God damn Spinoza - that crazy sonofabitch?" Here's what I finally settled on: "I wonder what John Locke's wife looked like. Was she hot? I mean, John Locke was really freaking smart. He could probably get a hot wife right? I wonder if she was as good-looking as David Hume's. But Hume was from Scotland - that doesn't bode well. But what about Voltaire? That sly dog surely had to have a hot wife, that is if he ever bothered with a wife or just slept around a whole bunch. Ahhhhh ze French womaaan." I'm pretty sure that would have been enough to get me a zero.

Here's to standardized testing! That we may have something to make fun of throughout our lives!