Excuses & Point Hunters

...if I got to mention retake tests...  there's always that student, who hopes until the very end, and even after that. He/she has the time, why rush?

There will be a retake test? Then it's enough to prepare for that, the first test is just an ornament.

You sayin' there won't be any chance of correction then? It'll be fine, and besides, we have to have some excitement on this course of boredom! And also I like to live dangerrously!


Of yourse this is just one end of the "why I don't write the original test" scale.

So, the other extreme is looking for excuses, explains themselves. And by explaining themselves, anything can come up; the aunt of someone who a distant relative of the family knew died, or Poopy-ears, the kittycat of the family (and the apple of their eye) fell sick, or maybe nothing but the most classical reason comes to their mind:

This may be old hat, but however, it is also clever indeed, as the champions of self-deception, defference of problems and hushing-up are capable of playing out this card on every practical course, blaming it on the others without batting an eye, and meanwhile being deeply confident about appearing totally prepared for the retake text. All of the retake texts.

(Another kind of this is when in order to obtain the signature, they appear in multiple classes, listing vague statements about having gotten signatures in all other courses, along with outstanding grades that are off the charts, and this is the only one left, please don't ruin the excellent report card! But maybe we'll get back to this some other time.)

In contrast, what the average ones are good at is only selecting a subject the test for which they postpone into the safely incalculable, soft and friendly shadows of the far future (at least 2 or 3 weeks later); oddly enough, this subject always happens to be a part of the backbone of the curriculum. For them, the "Introduction to introductions 3" course, that accounts for one, yes, one juicy credit, will always be ahead of the "Well, this is just the essence of the profession" course on the list. Yes, even if things are stated so obviously.

And why? The real reasons can be figured out in most cases, but don't bother waiting to hear them from the mouths of the well-trained self-deceivers. Instead, some cliché will sound, something from a arbitrary point on the "the professor's picking at me" - "the explanation was lousy, it's all his fault I don't understand" - "this is soooo hard" axis.

From this point, it's only a matter of taste wether the teacher of the practical course has to listen to this all the way, or the conversations only take place in his/her head, as the dear student doesn't even bother to appear. This latter solution seems to be the better at first glance, the silence is sweet, but afterwards, a change in opinion can take place when angry letters demanding answers to how you dared to count missing the test also as a missed class arrive. Luckily enough, they usually don't even notice this, the problems only arise with the inevitable advent of the supplementary test.

The supplementary test is a sneaky bastard, it makes the innocent student believe that it's still far off, softly rocking him/her into serenity and self-esteem, and when his/her attention has finally languished, it tears the calendar apart, spings out of the corner, saying "Write me! Now!".

This is how I can imagine the series of events that lead to the 100% repetition of the things happened few weeks earlier. But this time there's nowhere to run, the appointment cannot be postponed further, nothing's left but the resigned clicking aroud, or doodling on the corner of the page, a few moans from the corner of the room saying "this wasn't even in the material" (but it was - twice), and then, somehow (or from somewhere, from someone, etc.) they manage to scrape together things to fill the page with that seem to be enough, so they can wait for a miracle to happen.

Then, when things suprisingly don't turn out as the young man / woman expected, off goes the usual "Can I retake the test?"...

This step can easily be avoided, only the fact that there won't be such an opportunity has to be made clear in the very beginning. Apart from this, there always are one or two brave people who try this. But there is something you cannot dodge. Point hunters.

Requests come that they want to see their tests, beause it cannot be true that it turned out to be just this much! They know that they did so much better!

There's actually no probelm with the demand to know what went wrong, not at all. It is something to be appreciated, seriously. However, most of them are as far as possible from learning from their mistakes and such notions far from reality. What rather comes up is calling the professor to account, pretentiousness and pouting, which can be sometimes difficult to stand without laughter.

Over time, this approach can lead to anything, I got the following gem braced at me the other day, concerning a task that the student started out good, but totally forgetting the "less is sometimes more" principle, he ruined his perfect solution and even managed to dance on its grave: "We are human, can't we make mistakes?" and "Because of that, all my hard work is lost?" Saying this about a 20 minute short test the requirement of which was 5 long lines. Oh, and he should have used what we had learnt on the previous class. My mistake.

But this is not the strange part of it all. In fact, none of the above is. It is rather the idealization whit which they handle the inavoidable outcome of the process. When the test doesn't go well, there are no more retake tests, no exam, maybe even Santa Claus isn't coming this year either, oh, cruel world, semesters are latened, and still, the overall cheerfulness is unborken. No wonder, as the culprit has been caught...