Exams Over Quotes

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Two minutes later, Garrett pops into the corridor, and I take one look at his expression and know he’s about to deliver good news. “You passed?” I squeal. He raises his exam booklet over his head like he’s acting out a scene from the Lion King. “A-fucking-minus!
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
His hand reached for her boob over her shirt and pawed at it, his palm still while his fingers moved around. I wondered if that felt good. Didn't seem like it would, but I decided to forgive Isaac on the grounds that he was going blind. The senses must feast while there is yet hunger and whatever. "I think he's hurting her boob," I said. "Yes, it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or perform a breast exam.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
Nothing is written," said the Phoenix. "You humans always think you're destinied for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose. You chose to take the exam. You chose to come to Sinegard. You chose to pledge Lore, you chose to study the paths of the gods, and you chose to follow your commander's demands over your master's warnings. At every critical juncture you were given an option; you were given a way out. Yet you picked precisely the roads that led you here. You are at this temple, kneeling before me, only because you wanted to be.
R.F. Kuang (The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1))
Imagine taking that last drive to the hospital," I said quietly. "The last time you'll ever drive a car." Without looking over at me, Augustus said, "You're killing my vibe here, Hazel Grace. I'm trying to observe young love in it's many-splendored awkwardness." "I think he's hurting her boob," I said. "Yes it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or perform a breast exam.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
History is not just about the analysis of evidence, unrolling vellum documents or answering exam papers. It is not about judging the dead. It is about understanding the meaning of the past—to realize the whole evolving human story over centuries, not just our own lifetimes.
Ian Mortimer (The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century)
What no school prepares you for is the fact that when you finally get to enter the adult world you’re just one of seven billion primates swinging from the trees, hurling your excrement at each other and fighting over the same tiny pot of job vacancies. Instead school teaches you everything that you don’t need to know, hands over your exam results and tells you to fuck off into the jungle to fend for yourself. No more handouts; no more free passes. Get out there and make a miracle happen. Or die.
Rupert Dreyfus (The Rebel's Sketchbook)
My girlfriend who is Abby Suso. My brain is totally obsessed with this fact. Like, I’m pretty sure my academic career is over, and God help me on the AP exams, because how are you supposed to think about calculus WHEN ABBY SUSO IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND?
Becky Albertalli (Leah on the Offbeat (Creekwood, #2))
I think dismissing female pain as overly familiar or somehow out-of-date--twice-told, thrice-told, 1,001-nights-told--masks deeper accusations: that suffering women are playing victim, going weak, or choosing self-indulgence over bravery. I think dismissing wounds offers a convenient excuse: no need to struggle with the listening or telling anymore. Plug it up. Like somehow our task is to inhabit the jaded aftermath of terminal self-awareness once the story of all pain has already been told.
Leslie Jamison (The Empathy Exams)
Maintain control over your thoughts and emotions when it comes to short-term love or temptation. It could potentially derail your long-term happiness and path to a successful life.
Harsh Suthar
Moreover, grandmothers of students who aren't doing so well in class are at even higher risk - students who are failing are fifty times more likely to lose a grandmother compared with non-failing students. In a paper exploring this sad connection, Adam speculates that the phenomenon is due to intrafamilial dynamics, which is to say, students' grandmothers care so much about their grandchildren that they worry themselves to death over the outcome of exams.
Dan Ariely (The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves)
Ah, the Hand of Glory!” said Mr. Borgin, abandoning Mr. Malfoy’s list and scurrying over to Draco. “Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, sir.” “I hope my son will amount to more than a thief or a plunderer, Borgin,” said Mr. Malfoy coldly, and Mr. Borgin said quickly, “No offense, sir, no offense meant —” “Though if his grades don’t pick up,” said Mr. Malfoy, more coldly still, “that may indeed be all he is fit for —” “It’s not my fault,” retorted Draco. “The teachers all have favorites, that Hermione Granger —” “I would have thought you’d be ashamed that a girl of no wizard family beat you in every exam,” snapped Mr. Malfoy. “Ha!” said Harry under his breath, pleased to see Draco looking both abashed and angry.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2))
By the time the average person finishes college, he or she will have taken over 2,600 tests, quizzes, and exams. The right answer approach becomes deeply ingrained in our thinking. This may be fine for some mathematical problems where there is in fact only one right answer. The difficulty is that most of life isn’t this way. Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers- all depending on what you’re looking for. But if you think there is only one right answer, then you’ll stop looking as soon as you find one.
Roger Von Oech (A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative)
It was a generation growing in its disillusionment about the deepening recession and the backroom handshakes and greedy deals for private little pots of gold that created the largest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. As heirs to the throne, we all knew, of course, how bad the economy was, and our dreams, the ones we were told were all right to dream, were teetering gradually toward disintegration. However, on that night, everyone seemed physically at ease and exempt from life’s worries with final exams over and bar class a distant dream with a week before the first lecture, and as I looked around at the jubilant faces and loud voices, if you listened carefully enough you could almost hear the culmination of three years in the breath of the night gasp in an exultant sigh as if to say, “Law school was over at last!
Daniel Amory (Minor Snobs)
When ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) claims that home birth and midwives are unsafe, they imply that the women who choose it and the midwives that provide it are acting irresponsibly and selfishly. They stigmatize normal birth just as the political right has stigmatized abortion. And they stigmatize women. "Our country has created a mythology of women who are irresponsible and don't care," says Paltrow. "We talk about welfare queens, crack moms, and murderous women who have abortions." A culture that allows such language to permeate our national subconscious inevitably dehumanizes all women, including mothers. Lyon argues that this thinking perpetuates a phrase often invoked in exam rooms and delivery rooms: The goal is to have a healthy baby. "This phrase is used over and over and over to shut down women's requests," she says. "The context needs to be that the goal is a healthy mom. Because mothers never make decisions without thinking about that healthy baby. And to suggest otherwise is insulting and degrading and disrespectful." What's best for women is best for babies. ... The goal is to have a healthy family.
Jennifer Block (Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care)
And just like that, the medical exam is over. I pass. . I have owned my queerness, and in doing so, accepted it for what it is: a miracle. A difficult miracle, like Musa's. One that I didn't ask for, had no choice but to receive. Sent from God, who made the heavens and the earth and who does not make mistakes. God, who has my back. God, who answered.
Lamya H. (Hijab Butch Blues)
Father had stretched out his long legs and was tilting back in his chair. Mother sat with her knees crossed, in blue slacks, smoking a Chesterfield. The dessert dishes were still on the table. My sisters were nowhere in evidence. It was a warm evening; the big dining-room windows gave onto blooming rhododendrons. Mother regarded me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and father were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming down. She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits (coffee?) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself. I had essentially been handed my own life. In subsequent years my parents would praise my drawings and poems, and supply me with books, art supplies, and sports equipment, and listen to my troubles and enthusiasms, and supervise my hours, and discuss and inform, but they would not get involved with my detective work, nor hear about my reading, nor inquire about my homework or term papers or exams, nor visit the salamanders I caught, nor listen to me play the piano, nor attend my field hockey games, nor fuss over my insect collection with me, or my poetry collection or stamp collection or rock collection. My days and nights were my own to plan and fill.
Annie Dillard (An American Childhood)
We say release, and radiance, and roses,” We say release, and radiance, and roses, and echo upon everything that's known; and yet, behind the world our names enclose is the nameless: our true archetype and home. The sun seems male, and earth is like a woman, the field is humble, and the forest proud; but over everything we say, inhuman, moves the forever-undetermined god. We grow up; but the world remains a child. Star and flower, in silence, watch us go. And sometimes we appear to be the final exam they must succeed on. And they do.
Rainer Maria Rilke (Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose)
PICARD: Did you read that book I gave you? (Wesley reacts, barely concealing a grimace as he recalls.) WESLEY: Some of it. PICARD: That's reassuring. WESLEY: I just don't have much time. PICARD: (re the book in his hand) There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy. (Wesley glances over at Picard's book) WESLEY: William James sure won't be on my Starfleet exams. PICARD: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained to deal with technology, and the mechanics of piloting a starship. WESLEY: But Starfleet Academy-- PICARD: It takes more than just that. Open your mind to the past... to history, art, philosophy. And then... (re: the stars) ...this will mean something. (Wesley considers this, almost embarrassed as he realizes Picard does truly care about him.) Then: PICARD (continuing) Just consider James' wisdom: "Philosophy... is not a technical matter... it is our sense of what life honestly means... our individual way of feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos." (then) That's what I want for you. From: STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION "Samaritan Snare" #40272-143 Written by Robert L. McCullough
Jean-Luc Picard
Approaching the Start of Civil Exams Perhaps I was once a young Chinese scholar approaching the start of civil exams, my mind grown weary and sad from seclusion with books on syntax and poetic style. All that I knew were the mist-covered mountains and sweet white blossoms of mountain apples that grew in the valleys of my province. But I had been gone over six years busy with studies in the Heavenly City empty and thin despite my work. I showed my verses to an older poet who told me a truth I longed to believe: all knowledge is futile and barren which does not open the love of your friends.
Jim Chapson
God, you had enough time to have been through it three times. You've been through my stuff. I bet you over and let one of you stick the world's longest finger up my ass. If a prostate check is an exam, that was a motherfucking safari. I was scared to look down. I thought I'd see that guy's finger nail sticking out of my cock.
Stephen King (The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2))
Squatting over it, I pulled it open. My clothes were neatly folded at the top. Robb hadn’t stolen anything.
R.L. Stine (Creature Teacher: The Final Exam (Goosebumps Most Wanted #6))
I added pieces the same way I’d constructed my body, from the inside out: boy-cut panties first (lacy), bra (sheer), stockings (thigh high), knee-length leather skirt (black), lime green midriff-baring shirt (polyester). David leaned against the wall and watched this striptease-in-reverse with fabulously expressive eyebrows slowly climbing toward heaven, I finished it off with a pair of strappy lime green three-inch heels, something from the Manolo Blahnik spring collection that I’d seen two months ago in Vogue. He looked me over, blinked behind the glasses, and asked, “You’re done?” I took offense, “Yeah. You with the fashion police?” “I don’t think I’d pass the entrance exam.” The eyebrows didn’t come down. “I never knew you were so…” “Fashionable?” “Not really the word I was thinking.” I struck a pose and looked at him from under my supernaturally lustrous eyelashes. “Come on, you know it’s sexy.” “And that’s sort of my point.
Rachel Caine (Heat Stroke (Weather Warden, #2))
The exam results came out on the last day of term. Harry, Ron and Hermione had passed every subject. Harry was amazed that he had got through Potions. He had a shrewd suspicion that Dumbledore had stepped in to stop Snape failing him on purpose. Snape's behaviour towards Harry over the past week had been quite alarming. Harry wouldn't have thought it possible that Snape's dislike for him could increase, but it certainly had done. A muscle twitched unpleasantly at the corner of Snape's thin mouth every time he looked at Harry, and he was constantly flexing his fingers, as though itching to place them around Harry's throat.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
The night before, Bharati had been sitting at the entrance of her hut studying for the exam with a small kerosene lamp for light. Her mother was asleep on the ground outside. They were so poor they couldn’t afford a lamp with a glass cover over the flame. Bharati dozed off. The lamp fell over. Kerosene spilled. The hut caught fire. Thirteen-year-old Bharati, the daughter of the martyr Noble, was consumed in the blaze.
Sujatha Gidla (Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India)
For two goddamn years, I’d worked alongside this woman and I never thought I would see the day when she had the audacity to turn in a two weeks’ notice. She was now my highest paid employee by far and her recent benefits were so over the top and beyond the scope of what any Fortune 500 CEO offered, that George made me submit to a quarterly psychiatric exam to make sure I knew “what the hell she was being offered access to.
Whitney G. (Two Weeks Notice)
Whereas a physician used to do house calls, sit at the bedside, and touch the patient, we now offer 13-minute patient visits in a sterile white room where lab tests may take the place of a thorough patient history and radiological studies may even replace the hands-on physical exam. Without the healing power of listening, loving touch, nurturing care, and healing intention, what are we offering patients beyond straight technology?
Lissa Rankin (Mind Over Medicine)
The conversation progressed, bumper-car style, to a very heated discussion about death and the survival of the soul. It amazes me that we, as a species, can argue so fervently over something that is, when all is said and done, unknowable and unprovable. Nonetheless, we all arrive at conclusions and cleave to our certainties: that there is nothing but the Void; or that we will find ourselves writing an admissions exam at the Pearly Gates.
Bill Richardson (Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast)
Back in Cambridge, the bank clock read 8:40. We went to Ivan’s dining hall. The dining halls were open late for exam period. At a table near the door, two students were slumped over their books, either asleep or murdered.
Elif Batuman (The Idiot)
Two months in Shanghai, and what does she have to show for herself? She had been full of plans on the plane ride over, had studied her phrase book as if cramming for an exam, had been determined to refine her computational model with a new set of data, expecting insights and breakthroughs, plotting notes for a new article. Only the time has trickled away so quickly. She has meandered through the days chatting with James instead of gathering data. At night, she has gone out to dinners and bars. [James'] Chinese has not improved; her computational model has barely been touched. She does not know what she has been doing with herself, and now an airplane six days away is waiting for her.
Ruiyan Xu (The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai)
At high school I was never comfortable for a minute. I did not know about Lonnie. Before an exam, she got icy hands and palpitations, but I was close to despair at all times. When I was asked a question in class, any simple little question at all, my voice was apt to come out squeaky, or else hoarse and trembling. When I had to go to the blackboard I was sure—even at a time of the month when this could not be true—that I had blood on my skirt. My hands became slippery with sweat when they were required to work the blackboard compass. I could not hit the ball in volleyball; being called upon to perform an action in front of others made all my reflexes come undone. I hated Business Practice because you had to rule pages for an account book, using a straight pen, and when the teacher looked over my shoulder all the delicate lines wobbled and ran together. I hated Science; we perched on stools under harsh lights behind tables of unfamiliar, fragile equipment, and were taught by the principal of the school, a man with a cold, self-relishing voice—he read the Scriptures every morning—and a great talent for inflicting humiliation. I hated English because the boys played bingo at the back of the room while the teacher, a stout, gentle girl, slightly cross-eyed, read Wordsworth at the front. She threatened them, she begged them, her face red and her voice as unreliable as mine. They offered burlesqued apologies and when she started to read again they took up rapt postures, made swooning faces, crossed their eyes, flung their hands over their hearts. Sometimes she would burst into tears, there was no help for it, she had to run out into the hall. Then the boys made loud mooing noises; our hungry laughter—oh, mine too—pursued her. There was a carnival atmosphere of brutality in the room at such times, scaring weak and suspect people like me.
Alice Munro (Dance of the Happy Shades)
You've been through my stuff. I bent over and let one of you stick the world's longest finger up my ass. If a prostate check is an exam, that was a motherfucking safari. I was scared to look down. I thought I'd see that guy's fingernail sticking out of my cock.
Stephen King
Oh, Dak. You don't actually know the answer, do you? Poor thing. That's okay. It happens. Remember when I got a ninety-nine point seven five percent on my college prep Chemistry exam last year? That was..." Sera's eyes clouded over and she shook her head. "That was... heartbreaking. I understand what you're going through.
Lisa McMann (The Trap Door (Infinity Ring, #3))
Now that his children had grown into their lives, their own children too, there was no one who needed more than the idea of him, and he thought maybe that was why he had this nagging feeling, this sense that there were things he had to know for himself, only for himself. He knew, of course he knew, that a life wasn't anything like one of those novels Jenny read, that it stumbled along, bouncing off one thing, then another, until it just stopped, nothing wrapped up neatly. He remembered his children's distress at different times, failing an exam or losing a race, a girlfriend. Knowing that they couldn't believe him but still trying to tell them that it would pass, that they would be amazed, looking back, to think it had mattered at all. He thought of himself, thought of things that had seemed so important, so full of meaning when he was twenty, or forty, and he thought maybe it was like Jenny's books after all. Red herrings and misdirection, all the characters and observations that seemed so central, so significant while the story was unfolding. But then at the end you realized that the crucial thing was really something else. Something buried in a conversation, a description - you realized that all along it had been a different answer, another person glimpsed but passed over, who was the key to everything. Whatever everything was. And if you went back, as Jenny sometimes did, they were there, the clues you'd missed while you were reading, caught up in the need to move forward. All quietly there.
Mary Swan
The noise of the town some floors below was greatly muted. In a state of complete mental detachment, he went over the events, the circumstances and the stages of destruction in their lives. Seen in the frozen light of a restrictive past, everything seemed clear, conclusive and indisputable. Now it seemed unthinkable that a girl of seventeen shoudl be so naive; it was particularly unbelieveable that a girl of seventeen should set so much store by love. If the surveys in the magazines were to be believed, things had changed a great deal in the twenty-five years since Annabelle was a teenager. Young girls today were more sensible, more sophisticated. Nowadays they worried more about their exam results and did their best to ensure they would have a decent career. For them, going out with boys was simply a game, a distraction motivated as much by narcissism as by sexual pleasure. They later would try to make a good marriage, basing their decision on a range of social and professional criteria, as well as on shared interests and tastes. Of course, in doing this they cut themselves off from any possibility of happiness--a condition indissociable from the outdated, intensely close bonds so incompatible with the exercise of reason--but this was their attempt to escape the moral and emotional suffering which had so tortured their forebears. This hope was, unfortunately, rapidly disappointed; the passing of love's torments simply left the field clear for boredom, emptiness and an anguished wait for old age and death. The second part of Annabelle's life therefore had been much more dismal and sad than the first, of which, in the end, she had no memory at all.
Michel Houellebecq
This is just a form letter,” Jules pointed out. “And as for the test, maybe she went in for a checkup. Women are supposed to do that once a year, right? She’d been in Kenya, and suddenly here she was going to this health clinic with Molly, so she figured, what the heck. Maybe this place gives pregnancy tests as part of their regular annual exam.” “Yeah,” Max said. “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Okay. Let’s run with the worst-case scenario. She is pregnant. I know it’s not like her to have a one-night stand, but . . .” Jules said, but then stopped. His words were meant to help, but, Hey, good news—the woman you love may have gotten knocked up from a night of casual sex with a stranger were not going to provide a whole hell of a lot of comfort. It didn’t matter that the idea was less awful than the terrible alternative—that Paul Jimmo had continued to pressure Gina. And he hadn’t taken no for an answer. Which was obviously what Max was thinking, considering the way he was working to grind down his few remaining back teeth. “So,” Jules said. “Looks like our little talk didn’t exactly succeed at putting you in a better place.” It was clear, when Max didn’t respond, that he was concentrating on not leaping through the window and flying—using his rage as a form of propulsion, across the street and blasting a body-shaped hole in the wall of that building where Gina and Molly were being held prisoner—please, heavenly father, let them be in there. And Jules knew that if it turned out that Paul Jimmo had so much as touched Gina without her consent, Max would find his grave, dig up his body, bring him back to life, and then kill the son of a bitch all over again.
Suzanne Brockmann (Breaking Point (Troubleshooters, #9))
I am having nightmares about sitting my exams naked,’ Franz said with an earnest expression as he sat down across from them. ‘Most disturbing.’ ‘If it’s any consolation I have nightmares about Franz sitting exams naked too,’ Shelby whispered to Laura. ‘One’s where I’m sat at the desk right behind his.’ ‘Oh, thanks very much for that mental image. Especially when I’m trying to concentrate,’ Laura said. ‘Thing is,’ Shelby whispered, ‘in the dream he’s really nervous because of the exam and so he’s sweating a lot.’ ‘OK, I am really not listening to you any more,’ Laura said, grimacing. ‘It gets worse because then he . . .’ Shelby leant over and whispered something in Laura’s ear. ‘Is Laura OK?’ Wing asked Otto quietly on the other side of the cluster of desks. ‘She appears to have suddenly gone quite pale.’ Otto looked over at Laura who was now repeatedly hitting Shelby with one of her notepads. Shelby meanwhile was laughing uncontrollably at the look of pure disgust on Laura’s face. ‘Shelby Trinity, there is something seriously wrong with you,’ Laura said, shaking her head. ‘You know, I am thinking Laura is struggling to be coping with the stress of the exams,’ Franz said sadly as he watched Laura rubbing at her temples as if desperately trying to erase something from her brain.
Mark Walden (Aftershock (H.I.V.E., #7))
Examples like this are one of the reasons I’ve never set much store in polygraph exams. It is largely ineffective on suspects who already have a criminal history and who may currently be involved in other crimes. They believe in their own warped minds that their crime was justified, or they were entitled to do it. Or, as several serial predators have told me over the years, if you can lie well to the police, how hard is it to lie to a box?
John E. Douglas (The Killer Across the Table)
young Harry was known to his mother’s staff as a contrarian who did the opposite of what he was told. As he grew up he became increasingly undisciplined. His father and his wider family watched helplessly as the boy refused to behave and rejected education. After he unsuccessfully tried to pass his entrance exam to Eton, his relations recognised that Harry’s ignorance was spilling over into arrogance. That reality was concealed during Diana’s funeral.
Tom Bower (Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors)
In the evening we shall be examined on love.” –St. John of the Cross And it won’t be multiple choice, though some of us would prefer it that way. Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on when we should be sticking to the point, if not together. In the evening there shall be implications our fear will change to complications. No cheating, we’ll be told, and we’ll try to figure out the cost of being true to ourselves. In the evening when the sky has turned that certain blue, blue of exam books, blue of no more daily evasions, we shall climb the hill as the light empties and park our tired bodies on a bench above the city and try to fill in the blanks. And we won’t be tested like defendants on trial, cross-examined till one of us breaks down, guilty as charged. No, in the evening, after the day has refused to testify, we shall be examined on love like students who don’t even recall signing up for the course and now must take their orals, forced to speak for once from the heart and not off the top of their heads. And when the evening is over and it’s late, the student body asleep, even the great teachers retired for the night, we shall stay up and run back over the questions, each in our own way: what’s true, what’s false, what unknown quantity will balance the equation, what it would mean years from now to look back and know we did not fail.
Thomas Centolella (Lights & Mysteries)
The wave of pure outrage blindsided me. I shouldn't be here, I thought. This is utterly fucked up. I should have been sitting in a garden down the road, barefoot with a drink in my hand, swapping the day's work stories with Peter and Jamie. I had never thought about this before, and it almost knocked me over: all the things we should have had. We should have stayed up all night together studying and stressing out before exams, Peter and I should have argued over who got to bring Jamie to our first dance and slagged her about how she looked in her dress. We should have come weaving home together, singing and laughing and inconsiderate, after drunken college nights. We could have shared a flat, taken off Interrailing around Europe, gone arm-in-arm through dodgy fashion phases and low-rent gigs and high-drama love affairs. Two of us might have been married by now, given the other one a godchild. I had been robbed blind.
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
The Sorting Hat is notorious for refusing to admit it has made a mistake in its sorting of a student. On those occasions when Slytherins behave altruistically or selflessly, when Ravenclaws flunk all their exams, when Hufflepuffs prove lazy yet academically gifted and when Gryffindors exhibit cowardice, the Hat steadfastly backs its original decision. On balance, however, the Hat has made remarkably few errors of judgement over the many centuries it has been at work.
J.K. Rowling (Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide (Pottermore Presents, #3))
Nagging at her was the idea that a deep-seated motive kept her from passing the bar exam. That submerged part of her didn’t want to practice law, and she kept hoping that something would happen to rescue her from her own small-scale, predictable dreams. Her goals had been the goals of radical women a century ago: to become a lawyer … to compete toe-to-toe with men. But like any second-hand goal, it felt like a burden. It had already been fulfilled ten million times over by other women.
Chuck Palahniuk (Beautiful You)
Like your mother. That's what you are. Another obstinate pig like your mother. But I'll fix you. We'll see. And if you don't pass that exam next week, by God I'll lame you for life. When I was your age, I had to get up and work. I had to rise at five in the morning and drag a milk cart half round the town for a few shillings a week. Here you get a chance of earning over a pound a week and you stick your nose up at it. I'll fix you. You wait. I have had to work hard for my living and I'll bloody well see that you do the same.
James Hanley (Boy)
For example, suppose you’ve completed an exam at school and received a poor grade. You may feel disgusted with yourself, presuming that you’re dense and incapable of doing better. These negative emotions and overly-critical assumptions will wreak havoc with your ability to perform well in the future. Exerting emotional control allows you to explore these emotions and assumptions honestly and determine if they’re accurate (spoiler: they’re rarely accurate). It gives you a chance to realign your perceptions about your abilities with reality.
Damon Zahariades (The Mental Toughness Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Facing Life's Challenges, Managing Negative Emotions, and Overcoming Adversity with Courage and Poise)
few days ago, before his exams had finished and he had seen the vision Voldemort had planted in his mind, he would have given almost anything for the Wizarding world to know that he had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back and know that he was neither a liar nor mad. Now, however . . . He walked a short way around the lake, sat down on its bank, sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs, and stared out over the gleaming water, thinking. . . . Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
These girls aren't wounded so much as post-wounded, and I see their sisters everywhere. They're over it. *I am not a melodramatic person.* God help the woman who is. What I'll call "post-wounded" isn't a shift in deep feeling (we understand these women still hurt) but a shift away from wounded affect---these women are aware that "woundedness" is overdone and overrated. They are wary of melodrama so they stay numb or clever instead. Post-wounded women make jokes about being wounded or get impatient with women who hurt too much. The post-wounded woman conducts herself as if preempting certain accusations: don't cry too loud, don't play victim, don't act the old role all over again. Don't ask for pain meds you don't need, don't give those doctors another reason to doubt the other women on their examination tables. Post-wounded women fuck men who don't love them and then they feel mildly sad about it, or just blase about it, more than anything they refuse to care about it, refuse to hurt about it---or else they are endlessly self-aware about the posture they have adopted if they allow themselves this hurting. The post-wounded posture is claustrophobic. It's full of jadedness, aching gone implicit, sarcasm quick-on-the-heels of anything that might look like self-pity. I see it in female writers and their female narrators, troves of stories about vaguely dissatisfied women who no longer fully own their feelings. Pain is everywhere and nowhere. Post-wounded women know that postures of pain play into limited and outmoded conceptions of womanhood. Their hurt has a new native language spoken in several dialects; sarcastic, apathetic, opaque; cool and clever. They guard against those moments when melodrama or self-pity might split their careful seams of intellect. *I should rather call is a seam.* We have sewn ourselves up. We bring everything to the grindstone.
Leslie Jamison (The Empathy Exams)
He arranged the ceremony for two o'clock in the afternoon a week before she was to leave. The exam had gone well and she was almost certain that she would qualify. Because other couples to be married came with family and friends, their ceremony seemed brisk and over quickly and caused much curiosity among those waiting because they had come alone. On their journey to Coney Island on the train that afternoon Tony raised the question for the first time of when they might marry in church and live together. 'I have money saved,' he said, 'so we could get an apartment and then move to the house when it's ready.' 'I don't mind,' she said. 'I wish we were going home together now.' He touched her hand. 'So do I,' he said. 'And the ring looks great on your finger.' She looked down at the ring. 'I'd better remember to take it off before Mrs Kehoe sees it.' The ocean was rough and grey and the wind blew white billowing clouds quickly across the sky. They moved slowly along the boardwalk and down the pier, where they stood watching the fishermen. As they walked back and sat eating hot dogs at Nathan's, Eilis spotted someone at the next table checking out her wedding ring. She smiled at herself. 'Will we ever tell our children that we did this?' she asked.
Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1))
She lay on her back with arms extended over her head and legs slightly spread. Cuchillo zip-tied her slender wrists and ankles to each corner of the long metal exam table and stuffed a washrag in her mouth to prevent her from crying out… Only her rapidly-moving eyes betrayed her distress, they darted from her captors to the wiry man tied to the wall…The interrogator stood close to the table, carelessly wielding a lovingly sharpened straight razor and licking his lips, while he ogled the helpless girl. Tuco felt his stomach turn when Cuchillo ran his dirty hand up the inside of her smooth leg and under the hem of her short dress.
Anson Scott (Borderland)
Imagine you were asked in a maths paper at junior school, 'Which would you prefer, a shilling or two sixpences?' and you answered, 'Two sixpences,' because thinking of the two tiny silver coins jingling together in your pocket made you feel good and you loved those cute little sixpences. But when the test paper was returned you saw a big red cross through your answer, and that night your mother explained to you that it was a trick question, two sixpences and a shilling were worth the same amount – which you knew, but you'd still prefer two sixpences. It wasn't that you were stupid, you just saw things from a different angle. Sixpences had character, shillings didn't. And you felt richer with two sixpences because there were two coins, not just one. But despite all these explanations, you were still wrong and you kept getting tripped up by these trick questions over and over again, in exams, in relationships, friendships, jobs and interviews. In fact, these misreadings of situations happened so often that you started to view the world as a tricksy and untruthful place. Then you noticed that the people who saw the tricks behind the questions were popular and always at the top of the class. Baffled by life and its unseen rules, you began to doubt everything around you. You felt you had to approach all of life as a trick, just to get it right a few times.
Viv Albertine (To Throw Away Unopened)
Rincewind picked up a spare paper and read it. It was headed: Examination for the post of Assistant Night-Soil Operative for the District of W'ung. He read question one. It required candidates to write a sixteen-line poem on evening mist over the reed beds. Question two seemed to be about the use of metaphor in some book Rincewind had never heard of. Then there was a question about music . . . Rincewind turned the paper over a couple of times. There didn't seem to be any mention, anywhere, of words like 'compost' or 'bucket' or 'wheelbarrow'. But presumably all this produced a better class of person than the Ankh-Morpork system, which asked just one question: 'Got your own shovel, have you?
Terry Pratchett (Interesting Times (Discworld, #17; Rincewind, #5))
Gideon was quickly checking through her muscular structure and then weaving very gently into the complexities of her reproductive system. Suddenly Legna cried out again, her hands hitting his chest and grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, her entire body trembling from head to toe. This time Gideon gave the reaction his full attention. He looked into her wide eyes, the pupils dilating as he watched. Her mouth formed a soft, silent circle of surprise. “What are you doing?” she asked, her breath falling short and quick. “Nothing,” he insisted, his expression reflecting his baffled thoughts. “Merely continuing the exam. What are you feeling?” Legna couldn’t put the sensation into words. Her entire body felt as if it were pooling liquid fire, like magma dripping through her, centering under the hand he had just splayed over her lower belly. So, being the empath she was, she described it in the only way she could with any efficiency and effectiveness. She sent the sensations to him, deeply, firmly, without preparation or permission, exactly the way she had received them. In an instant, Gideon went from being in control of a neutral examination to an internal thermonuclear flashpoint of arousal that literally took his breath away. His hand flexed on her belly, crushing the silk of her dress within his fist. “Legna!” he cried hoarsely. “What are you doing?” She didn’t even seem aware of him, her eyes sliding closed and her head falling back as she tried to gulp in oxygen. His eyes slid down over her and he saw the flush and rigidity of erogenous heat building with incredible speed beneath her skin. And as it built in her, it built in him. She had created a loop between them, a locked cycle that started nowhere, ended nowhere. All it did was spill through and through them. “Stop,” he commanded, his voice rough and desperate as he tried to clear his mind and control the impulses surging through him. “Legna, stop this!” Legna dropped her head forward, her eyes flicking open and upward until she was gazing at him from under her lashes with the volatile, predatory gaze of a cat. A cat in heat.
Jacquelyn Frank (Gideon (Nightwalkers, #2))
Although there are many more things we could say about fourteenth-century England, probably enough has been said for you to have an idea of what it is like, prior to setting out. Only one question remains to be answered. Why should you want to set out in the first place? Or, to put it more bluntly, why should you actually want to see the living past? Is the fourteenth-century not better left for dead, a pile of parchments, monastic ruins, and museum artifacts? … History is not just about the analysis of evidence, unrolling vellum documents or answering exam papers. It is not about judging the dead. It is about understanding the meaning of the past - to realize the whole evolving human story over centuries, not just our own lifetimes.
Ian Mortimer (The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century)
They have just sat their first set of exams and are waiting for the results, waiting for the summer to be over, for the new school year to begin, waiting for their futures to take shape, waiting for their shifts to end, waiting for the tourists to leave, waiting, waiting. Some are waiting for bad haircuts to grow out, for their parents to allow them to drive or give them more money or clock their unhappiness, for the boy or girl they like to notice them, for the cassette tape they ordered at the music shop to arrive, for their shoes to wear out so they can be bought new ones, for the bus to arrive, for the phone to ring. They are, all of them, waiting because that is what teenagers who grow up in seaside towns do. They wait. For something to end, for something to begin.
Maggie O'Farrell (I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death)
we live in a world where logic is massively overrated, emotions are seen as a weakness and decisions based on intuition have little or no place. We have forgotten where we came from. Over time, we have neglected the limbic brain that got us to the pivotal moment in our evolution, and instead placed the cortex on a pedestal. We have demoted depth, passion and instinct and come to rely on the surface-level capabilities—such as exams, rote-learning or transactional relationships—that are more connected with material gain than true joy. We live a life dominated by stress and are too busy to really take notice of who we are, where we are going and what we want from life. We are now at a moment where technology will disrupt our minds and bodies more than we can begin to imagine.
Tara Swart (The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain)
When it passes us, the driver tips his cap our way, eying us as if he thinks we're up to no good-the kind of no good he might call the cops on. I wave to him and smile, wondering if I look as guilty as I feel. Better make this the quickest lesson in driving history. It's not like she needs to pass the state exam. If she can keep the car straight for ten seconds in a row, I've upheld my end of the deal. I turn off the ignition and look at her. "So, how are you and Toraf doing?" She cocks her head at me. "What does that have to do with driving?" Aside from delaying it? "Nothing," I say, shrugging. "Just wondering." She pulls down the visor and flips open the mirror. Using her index finger, she unsmudges the mascara Rachel put on her. "Not that it's your business, but we're fine. We were always fine." "He didn't seem to think so." She shoots me a look. "He can be oversensitive sometimes. I explained that to him." Oversensitive? No way. She's not getting off that easy. "He's a good kisser," I tell her, bracing myself. She turns in her seat, eyes narrowed to slits. "You might as well forget about that kiss, Emma. He's mine, and if you put your nasty Half-Breed lips on him again-" "Now who's being oversensitive?" I say, grinning. She does love him. "Switch places with me," she snarls. But I'm too happy for Toraf to return the animosity. Once she's in the driver's seat, her attitude changes. She bounces up and down like she's mattress shopping, getting so much air that she'd puncture the top if I hadn't put it down already. She reaches for the keys in the ignition. I grab her hand. "Nope. Buckle up first." It's almost cliché for her to roll her eyes now, but she does. When she's finished dramatizing the act of buckling her seat belt-complete with tugging on it to make sure it won't unclick-she turns to me in pouty expectation. I nod. She wrenches the key and the engine fires up. The distant look in her eyes makes me nervous. Or maybe it's the guilt swirling around in my stomach. Galen might not like this car, but it still feels like sacrilege to put the fate of a BMW in Rayna's novice hands. As she grips the gear stick so hard her knuckles turn white, I thank God this is an automatic. "D is for drive, right?" she says. "Yes. The right pedal is to go. The left pedal is to stop. You have to step on the left one to change into drive." "I know. I saw you do it." She mashes down on the brake, then throws us into drive. But we don't move. "Okay, now you'll want to step on the right pedal, which is the gas-" The tires start spinning-and so do we. Rayna stares at me wide-eyed and mouth ajar, which isn't a good thing since her hands are on the wheel. It occurs to me that she's screaming, but I can't hear her over my own screeching. The dust wall we've created whirls around us, blocking our view of the trees and the road and life as we knew it. "Take your foot off the right one!" I yell. We stop so hard my teeth feel rattled. "Are you trying to get us killed?" she howls, holding her hand to her cheek as if I've slapped her. Her eyes are wild and glassy; she just might cry. "Are you freaking kidding me? You're the one driving!
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
Do you condemn the kids for not having been blessed with I.Q.s of 120? Can you condemn the kids? Can you condemn anyone? Can you condemn the colleges that give all you need to pass a board of education examination? Do you condemn the board of education for not making the exams stiffer, for not boosting the requirements, for not raising salaries, for not trying to attract better teachers, for not making sure their teachers are better equipped to teach? Or do you condemn the meatheads all over the world who drift into the teaching profession drift into it because it offers a certain amount of paycheck every month security ,vacation-every summer luxury, or a certain amount of power , or a certain easy road when the other more difficult roads are full of ruts? Oh he’d seen the meatheads, all right; he’d seen them in every education class he’d ever attended. The simpering female idiots who smiled and agreed with the instructor, who imparted vast knowledge gleaned from profound observations made while sitting at the back of the classroom in some ideal high school in some ideal neighborhood while an ideal teacher taught ideal students. Or the men who were perhaps the worst, the men who sometimes seemed a little embarrassed, over having chosen the easy road, the road the security, the men who sometimes made a joke about the women not realizing they themselves were poured from the same streaming cauldron of horse manure. Had Rick been one of these men? He did not believe so…. He had wanted to teach, had honestly wanted to teach. He had not considered the security or the two-month vacation, or the short tours. He had simply wanted to teach, and he had considred taeaching a worth-while profession. He had, in fact, considered it the worthiest profession. He had held no illusions about his own capabilities. He could not paint, or write, or compose, or sculpt, or philopshize deeply, or design tall buildings. He could contribute nothing to the world creatively and this had been a disappointment to him until he’d realized he could be a big creator by teaching. For here were minds to be sculptured, here were ideas to be painted, here were lives to shape. To spend his allotted time on earth as a bank teller or an insurance salesman would have seemed an utter waste to Rick. Women, he had reflected had no such problem. Creation had been given to them as a gift and a woman was self-sufficient within her own creative shell. A man needed more which perhaps was one reason why a woman could never understand a man’s concern for the job he had to do.
Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle)
Mother charged about five hundred dollars for a delivery, and this was another way midwifing changed her: suddenly she had money. Dad didn’t believe that women should work, but I suppose he thought it was all right for Mother to be paid for midwifing, because it undermined the Government. Also, we needed the money. Dad worked harder than any man I knew, but scrapping and building barns and hay sheds didn’t bring in much, and it helped that Mother could buy groceries with the envelopes of small bills she kept in her purse. Sometimes, if we’d spent the whole day flying about the valley, delivering herbs and doing prenatal exams, Mother would use that money to take me and Audrey out to eat. Grandma-over-in-town had given me a journal, pink with a caramel-colored teddy bear on the cover, and in it I recorded the first time Mother took us to a restaurant, which I described as “real fancy with menus and everything.” According to the entry, my meal came to $3.30.
Tara Westover (Educated)
They tried to befriend the second-year cohort, too, a group of five white boys who lived just across the way on Merton Street. But this went south immediately when one of them, Philip Wright, told Robin at a faculty dinner that the first-year cohort was largely international only because of departmental politics. ‘The board of undergraduate studies is always fighting over whether to prioritize European languages, or other . . . more exotic languages. Chakravarti and Lovell have been making a stink about diversifying the student body for years. They didn’t like that my cohort are all Classicists. I assume they were overcorrecting with you.’ Robin tried to be polite. ‘I’m not sure why that’s such a bad thing.’ ‘Well, it’s not a bad thing per se, but it does mean spots taken away from equally qualified candidates who passed the entrance exams.’ ‘I didn’t take any entrance exams,’ said Robin. ‘Precisely.’ Philip sniffed, and did not say another word to Robin for the entire evening.
R.F. Kuang (Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution)
For instance, there was the case of Nancy Schmeing, who had recently earned her doctorate in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Incredibly, Schmeing failed the reading comprehension section of the new [Massachusetts] teacher test, which required one to quickly read short essays and then choose the one "best" answer among those provided by the test maker. The exam supposedly assessed one's ability to boil down the essential meanings of prose. Schmeing's failing the reading section created a small furor about the test's credibility. After graduating from MIT, Schmeing worked as a technical consultant, translating engineering, science, and business documents for clients around the world. Thus, the very nature of her work necessitated the ability to find essential meanings in written texts, to comprehend a writer's purpose, and so forth. Moreover, Schmeing was a Fulbright scholar, had graduated magnum cum laude from college ... Schmeing's failure simply defied common sense, fueling concerns over the exam's predictive validity.
Peter Sacks (Standardized Minds: The High Price Of America's Testing Culture And What We Can Do To Change It)
You look terrible,” was Ron’s greeting as he entered the room to wake Harry. “Not for long,” said Harry, yawning. They found Hermione downstairs in the kitchen. She was being served coffee and hot rolls by Kreacher and wearing the slightly manic expression that Harry associated with exam review. “Robes,” she said under her breath, acknowledging their presence with a nervous nod and continuing to poke around in her beaded bag, “Polyjuice Potion . . . Invisbility Cloak . . . Decoy Detonators . . . You should each take a couple just in case. . . . Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat, Extendable Ears . . .” They gulped down their breakfast, then set off upstairs, Kreacher bowing them out and promising to have a steak-and-kidney pie ready for them when they returned. “Bless him,” said Ron fondly, “and when you think I used to fantasize about cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall.” They made their way onto the front step with immense caution: They could see a couple of puffy-eyed Death Eaters watching the house from across the misty square. Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, then came back for Harry. After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Harry found himself in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. It was as yet deserted, except for a couple of large bins; the first Ministry workers did not usually appear here until at least eight o’clock. “Right then,” said Hermione, checking her watch. “She ought to be here in about five minutes. When I’ve Stunned her—” “Hermione, we know,” said Ron sternly. “And I thought we were supposed to open the door before she got here?” Hermione squealed. “I nearly forgot! Stand back—” She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward her, to make it look as though it was still closed. “And now,” she said, turning back to face the other two in the alleyway, “we put on the Cloak again—” “—and we wait,” Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione’s head like a blanket over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Harry.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
He still has the same nightmares, ten years on. After Police College, exams, shift after shift, late nights, all his work at the station that's garnered so much praise from everyone but his dad, even more late nights, so much work that he's come to hate not working, unsteady walks home at dawn to the piles of bills in the hall and an empty bed, sleeping pills, alcohol. On nights when everything has been completely unbearable he's gone out running, mile after mile through darkness and cold and silence, his feet drumming against the pavement faster and faster, but never with the intention of getting anywhere, of accomplishing anything. Some men run like hunters, but he ran like their prey. Drained with exhaustion he would finally stagger home, then head off to work and start all over again. Sometimes a few whiskies were enough to get him to sleep, and on good mornings ice-cold showers were enough to wake him up, and in between he did whatever he could to take the edge off the hypersensitivity of his skin, stifle the tears when he felt them in his chest, long before they reached his throat and eyes. But all the while: still those same nightmares.
Fredrik Backman (Anxious People)
You ever choked? You know what I mean, fumbled at the goal line, stuck your foot in your mouth when you were trying to ask that girl on a date, had a brain freeze on the final exam you were totally prepared for, lipped out a three-foot putt to win the golf tournament, or been paralyzed by the feeling of “Oh my god life can’t get any better, do I really deserve this?” I have. What happens when we get that feeling? We clench up, get short of breath, self-conscious. We have an out-of-body experience where we observe ourselves in the third person, no longer present, now not doing well what we are there to do. We become voyeurs of our moment because we let it become bigger than us, and in doing so, we just became less involved in it and more impressed with it. Why does this happen? It happens because when we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we then create a fictitious ceiling, a restriction, over the expectations we have of our own performance in that moment. We get tense, we focus on the outcome instead of the activity, and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result, or it’s too good to be true. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t, and it’s not our right to believe it does or is. Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
Peter and I are at Starbucks, sitting side by side, studying for our chemistry exam. Idly, he puts his arm around my chair and starts twisting my hair around his pencil and letting it unfurl like a slice of ribbon. I ignore him. He pulls my chair closer to his and plants a warm kiss on my neck, which makes me giggle. I scoot away from him. “I can’t concentrate when you do that.” “You said you like when I play with your hair.” “I do, but I’m trying to study.” I look around and then whisper, “Besides, we’re in public.” “There’s hardly anybody in here!” “There’s the barista, and that guy over there by the door.” I try to discreetly point with my pencil. Things have been quiet at school; the last thing we need is another meme flare-up. “Lara Jean, nobody’s going to film us if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re not doing anything.” “I told you from the start I’m not into PDAs,” I remind him. Peter smirks. “Really? Let’s not forget who kissed who in the hallway. You literally jumped on top of me, Covey.” I blush. “There was a purpose for that and you know it.” “There’s a purpose now,” he pouts. “The purpose is I’m bored and I feel like kissing you. Is that a crime?” “You’re such a baby,” I say, pinching his nose hard. “If you stay quiet and study for forty-five more minutes, I’ll let you kiss me in the privacy of your car.” Peter’s face lights up. “Deal.
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
My best friend growing up was a boy named Barry,” Buzan recalled, sitting outside on his patio with his pink shirt unbuttoned and a pair of large, wraparound geriatric sunglasses protecting his eyes. “He was always in the 1-D classes, while I was in 1-A. One-A was for the bright kids, D for the dunces. But when we went out into nature, Barry could identify things by the way they flew over the horizon. Just from their flight patterns, he could distinguish between a red admiral, a painted thrush, and a blackbird, which are all very similar. So I knew he was a genius. And I got a top mark in an exam on nature, a perfect mark, answering questions like ‘Name two fish you can find living in an English stream.’ There are a hundred and three. But when I got back my perfect mark on the test, I suddenly realized that the kid sitting down the hall in the dunces’ class, my best friend, Barry, knew more than I knew—much more than I knew—in the subject in which I was supposedly number one. And therefore, he was number one, and I was not number one. “And suddenly, I realized the system that I was in did not know what intelligence was, didn’t know how to identify smart and not smart. They called me the best, when I knew I wasn’t, and they called him the worst, when he was the best. I mean, there could be no more antipodal environment. So I began to question: What is intelligence? Who says? Who says you’re smart? Who says you’re not smart? And what do they mean by that?” Those questions, at least according to Buzan’s tidy personal narrative, dogged him until he got to college. Buzan’s introduction
Joshua Foer (Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything)
Become Aware of Memory Bias When people are anxious, they often have biased recall for events. For example, Brian talks himself into believing he screwed up an interview for a promotion because he thinks over and over about things he could’ve said. However, he doesn’t as easily recall the good answers he gave. He endlessly mentally rehashes ambiguous cues the interviewers gave off, such as appearing to rush through questions, but doesn’t as easily recall when the interviewers responded positively. Another example: A friend of mine used to talk herself into believing she’d failed every exam she ever took. She’d ruminate over all the answers she hadn’t known and wouldn’t recall questions she’d been able to answer correctly. The take-home message when you’re ruminating: Don’t trust your memory. You might be ruminating about something fictional or at least magnified. This also applies to ruminating about how you think others perceive you; you may just be mind reading based on a biased memory of interactions. Experiment: Do you have any current rumination topics where memory bias might be playing a role? If you can’t think of anything now, come back to this experiment when you have an issue that fits. Answer the following questions: 1. What’s your ruminating mind telling you? 2. What are the objective data telling you about whether your ruminative thoughts are likely to be correct? For example, my friend who always convinced herself she’d failed exams had never failed anything. 3. Are you recalling feedback as harsher than it was or recalling blips in your performance as worse than they were?
Alice Boyes (The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points)
It may seem paradoxical to claim that stress, a physiological mechanism vital to life, is a cause of illness. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we must differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is the immediate, short-term body response to threat. Chronic stress is activation of the stress mechanisms over long periods of time when a person is exposed to stressors that cannot be escaped either because she does not recognize them or because she has no control over them. Discharges of nervous system, hormonal output and immune changes constitute the flight-or-fight reactions that help us survive immediate danger. These biological responses are adaptive in the emergencies for which nature designed them. But the same stress responses, triggered chronically and without resolution, produce harm and even permanent damage. Chronically high cortisol levels destroy tissue. Chronically elevated adrenalin levels raise the blood pressure and damage the heart. There is extensive documentation of the inhibiting effect of chronic stress on the immune system. In one study, the activity of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells were compared in two groups: spousal caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and age- and health-matched controls. NK cells are front-line troops in the fight against infections and against cancer, having the capacity to attack invading micro-organisms and to destroy cells with malignant mutations. The NK cell functioning of the caregivers was significantly suppressed, even in those whose spouses had died as long as three years previously. The caregivers who reported lower levels of social support also showed the greatest depression in immune activity — just as the loneliest medical students had the most impaired immune systems under the stress of examinations. Another study of caregivers assessed the efficacy of immunization against influenza. In this study 80 per cent among the non-stressed control group developed immunity against the virus, but only 20 per cent of the Alzheimer caregivers were able to do so. The stress of unremitting caregiving inhibited the immune system and left people susceptible to influenza. Research has also shown stress-related delays in tissue repair. The wounds of Alzheimer caregivers took an average of nine days longer to heal than those of controls. Higher levels of stress cause higher cortisol output via the HPA axis, and cortisol inhibits the activity of the inflammatory cells involved in wound healing. Dental students had a wound deliberately inflicted on their hard palates while they were facing immunology exams and again during vacation. In all of them the wound healed more quickly in the summer. Under stress, their white blood cells produced less of a substance essential to healing. The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of Hans Selye’s. The flight-or-fight response, it is argued, was indispensable in an era when early human beings had to confront a natural world of predators and other dangers. In civilized society, however, the flight-fight reaction is triggered in situations where it is neither necessary nor helpful, since we no longer face the same mortal threats to existence. The body’s physiological stress mechanisms are often triggered inappropriately, leading to disease. There is another way to look at it. The flight-or-fight alarm reaction exists today for the same purpose evolution originally assigned to it: to enable us to survive. What has happened is that we have lost touch with the gut feelings designed to be our warning system. The body mounts a stress response, but the mind is unaware of the threat. We keep ourselves in physiologically stressful situations, with only a dim awareness of distress or no awareness at all.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
When the bullhorn signaled that he'd met the qualifying time,he struggled to gather his wits,waiting until Devil was right alongside the gate before he freed his hand,cutting himself loose. He flew through the air and over the corral fence,landing in the dirt at Marilee Trainor's feet. "My God! Don't move." She was beside him in the blink of an eye,kneeling in the dirt,probing for broken bones. Wyatt lay perfectly still,enjoying the feel of those clever, practiced hands moving over him.When she moved from his legs to his torso and arms,he opened his eyes to narrow slits and watched her from beneath lowered lids. She was the perfect combination of beauty and brains.He could see the wheels turning as she did a thorough exam.Even her brow,furrowed in concentration,couldn't mar that flawless complexion. Her eyes, the color of the palest milk chocolate, were narrowed in thought.Strands of red hair dipped over one cheek, giving her a sultry look. Satisfied that nothing was broken, she sat back on her heels,feeling a moment of giddy relief. That was when she realized that he was staring. She waved a hand before his eyes. "How many fingers can you see?" "Four fingers and a thumb. Or should I say four beautiful,long,slender fingers and one perfect thumb,connected to one perfect arm of one perfectly gorgeous female? And,I'm happy to add,there's no ring on the third finger of that hand." She caught the smug little grin on his lips. Her tone hardened. "I get it. A showboat.I should have known.I don't have time to waste on some silver-tongued actor." "Why,thank you.I had no idea you'd examined my tongue.Mind if I examine yours?" She started to stand,but his hand shot out,catching her by the wrist. "Sorry.That was really cheesy, but I couldn't resist teasing you." His tone altered,deepened,just enough to have her glancing over to see if he was still teasing. He met her look. "Are you always this serious?" Despite his apology,she wasn't about to let him off the hook,or change her mind about him.
R.C. Ryan (Montana Destiny)
Besides, it’s not as big a deal as people make it out to be. You just have to be prepared to answer any question on any of the four hundred books you’ve read so far in graduate school. And if you get it wrong, they kick you out,” she said. He fixed her with a look of barely contained awe while she stirred the salad around her plate with the tines of her fork. She smiled at him. Part of learning to be a professor was learning to behave in a professorial way. Thomas could not be permitted to see how afraid she was. The oral qualifying exam is usually a turning point—a moment when the professoriate welcomes you as a colleague rather than as an apprentice. More infamously, the exam can also be the scene of spectacular intellectual carnage, as the unprepared student—conscious but powerless—witnesses her own professional vivisection. Either way, she will be forced to face her inadequacies. Connie was a careful, precise young woman, not given to leaving anything to chance. As she pushed the half-eaten salad across the table away from the worshipful Thomas, she told herself that she was as prepared as it was possible to be. In her mind ranged whole shelvesful of books, annotated and bookmarked, and as she set aside her luncheon fork she roamed through the shelves of her acquired knowledge, quizzing herself. Where are the economics books? Here. And the books on costume and material culture? One shelf over, on the left. A shadow of doubt crossed her face. But what if she was not prepared enough? The first wave of nausea contorted her stomach, and her face grew paler. Every year, it happened to someone. For years she had heard the whispers about students who had cracked, run sobbing from the examination room, their academic careers over before they had even begun. There were really only two ways that this could go. Her performance today could, in theory, raise her significantly in departmental regard. Today, if she handled herself correctly, she would be one step closer to becoming a professor. Or she would look in the shelves
Katherine Howe (The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane)
Dear Brave People, I realise that it appears I'm fearless. I can make that presentation with ease, I can stand near the edge of the cliff and look down, and I can befriend that spider in the bathroom. (He's called Steve). But recently I've realised that's not what makes people brave. Brave has a different meaning. I'm afraid of people leaving. After I watched my best friend become someone else's and I was forced into befriending my childhood bully, I realised I don't want to let myself go through this again. I see my fear come through when questioning my boyfriend;s affections. I see it when I distance myself from my friends who are going to leave for university. Isee it in my overanalysis of my parents' relationship and paranoia over a possible divorce. I don't want to be alone. I'm afraid of failure. I aced my exams and the bar has moved up again. I have those high expectations along with everyone else, but I know now that maybe the tower is just too tall, and I should've built stronger foundations. I act like I know what I'm doing, but really I'm drifting away from the shore faster and faster. I don't want to let anyone down. I'm afraid of change. I don't know where I lie anymore. I thought I knew what to do in my future, but I can't bear to think that I'm now not so sure. I thought I was completely straight, but now it's internal agony as I'm not so sure. Turns out I thought a lot of things. I don't want my life to not be the way I expected. I may not be scared of crowds. Or the dark. Or small spaces. But I am afraid. I am afraid of responsibility; I am afraid of not living up to expectations, of the changing future, of growing up, not knowing, sex, relationships, hardship, secrets, grades, judgment, falling short, loneliness, change, confusion, arguments, curiosity, love, hate, losing, pressure, differences, honesty, lies. I am afraid of me. Yet, despite this, I know I am brave. I know I am brave because I've accepted my invisible fears and haven't let them overcome me. I want you to know that you're brave because you know your fears. You're brave because you introduced yourself. You're brave because you said "No, I don't understand." You're brave because you're here. I hope you can learn from me and be brave in your own way. I know I am. -B
Emily Trunko (Dear My Blank: Secret Letters Never Sent)
When we reflect on our daily lives, we might look back at a day that was very stressful and think, “Well, that wasn’t my favorite day this week.” When you’re in the middle of one of those days, you might long for a day with less stress in it. But if you put a wider lens on your life and subtract every day that you have experienced as stressful, you won’t find yourself with an ideal life. Instead, you’ll find yourself also subtracting the experiences that have helped you grow, the challenges you are most proud of, and the relationships that define you. You may have spared yourself some discomfort, but you will also have robbed yourself of some meaning. And yet, it’s not at all uncommon to wish for a life without stress. While this is a natural desire, pursuing it comes at a heavy cost. In fact, many of the negative outcomes we associate with stress may actually be the consequence of trying to avoid it. Psychologists have found that trying to avoid stress leads to a significantly reduced sense of well-being, life satisfaction, and happiness. Avoiding stress can also be isolating. In a study of students at Doshisha University in Japan, the goal to avoid stress predicted a drop, over time, in their sense of connection and belonging. Having such a goal can even exhaust you. For example, researchers at the University of Zurich asked students about their goals, then tracked them for one month. Across two typically stressful periods—end-of-semester exams and the winter holidays—those with the strongest desire to avoid stress were the most likely to report declines in concentration, physical energy, and self-control. One particularly impressive study conducted through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Palo Alto, California, followed more than one thousand adults for ten years. At the beginning of the study, researchers asked the participants about how they dealt with stress. Those who reported trying to avoid stress were more likely to become depressed over the following decade. They also experienced increasing conflict at work and at home, and more negative outcomes, such as being fired or getting divorced. Importantly, avoiding stress predicted the increase in depression, conflict, and negative events above and beyond any symptoms or difficulties reported at the beginning of the study. Wherever a participant started in life, the tendency to avoid stress made things worse over the next decade. Psychologists call this vicious cycle stress generation. It’s the ironic consequence of trying to avoid stress: You end up creating more sources of stress while depleting the resources that should be supporting you. As the stress piles up, you become increasingly overwhelmed and isolated, and therefore even more likely to rely on avoidant coping strategies, like trying to steer clear of stressful situations or to escape your feelings with self-destructive distractions. The more firmly committed you are to avoiding stress, the more likely you are to find yourself in this downward spiral. As psychologists Richard Ryan, Veronika Huta, and Edward Deci write in The Exploration of Happiness, “The more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community.
Kelly McGonigal (The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It)
When something goes wrong, such as failing an exam to qualify as a doctor, a person may seem to be despairing over something that has been lost. But on closer inspection, according to Kierkegaard, it becomes obvious that the man is not really despairing of the thing (failing an exam) but of himself. The self that failed to achieve a goal has become intolerable. The man wanted to become a different self (a doctor), but he is now stuck with a failed self and in despair.
Nigel Benson (The Psychology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained)
Martha asked me if I thought Communion could be received through the womb. I had to admit it was a new question for me (while thinking to myself that it would make a great question for ordination exams). She said she'd received Communion the previous Sunday in church and took some comfort in believing that the symbols of Christ's body and blood had made their way to baby Sarah Louise, even before she was born. That's important, she said, because little Sarah would need all the signs of grace she could get before the measuring took over.
M. Craig Barnes (When God Interrupts: Finding New Life Through Unwanted Change)
After I had been at my university for a year, the foreign lecturers were suddenly kicked out over our spring holiday. We returned to classes to find only the local teachers were left. We were never told the reason the lecturers went, but I could no longer study there because all my language teachers had gone. But when God shuts a window, He opens a door! My dream now was to go to the College for International Relations. The College for International Relations was the top university in our country, and I thought it was completely out of my reach. I still had the financial backing of the Bible teacher, but I had yet to pass the entry exam. I made an appointment to see the president of the university and boldly told him I wanted to study international relations. I asked if it would be possible to take the exam. I had ambitions to work as a diplomat, a peacemaker.
Samaa Habib (Face to Face with Jesus: A Former Muslim's Extraordinary Journey to Heaven and Encounter with the God of Love)
She ran her hand over my forehead. “You not sick?” “No,” I said. “It’s called math.” Mr. Wellington shook his head. “She has an exam.
Vanessa Fewings (Enthrall Him (Enthrall, #3))
Table of Contents Your Free Book Why Healthy Habits are Important Healthy Habit # 1:  Drink Eight Glasses of Water Healthy Habit #2:  Eat a Serving of Protein and Carbohydrates Healthy Habit #3:  Fill Half Your Plate with Vegetables Healthy Habit #4:  Add Two Teaspoons of Healthy Oil to Meals Healthy Habit #5:  Walk for 30 Minutes Healthy Habit #6:  Take a Fish Oil Supplement Healthy Habit #7:  Introduce Healthy Bacteria to Your Body Healthy Habit #8:  Get a “Once a Month” Massage Healthy Habit #9:  Eat a Clove of Garlic Healthy Habit #10:  Give Your Sinuses a Daily Bath Healthy Habit #11:  Eat 25-30 Grams of Fiber Healthy Habit #12:  Eliminate Refined Sugar and Carbohydrates Healthy Habit #13:  Drink a Cup of Green Tea Healthy Habit #14:  Get Your Vitamin D Levels Checked Yearly Healthy Habit #15: Floss Your Teeth Healthy Habit #16: Wash Your Hands Often Healthy Habit #17:  Treat a Cough or Sore Throat with Honey Healthy Habit #18:  Give Your Body 500 mg of Calcium Healthy Habit #19:  Eat Breakfast Healthy Habit #20:  Sleep 8-10 Hours Healthy Habit #21:  Eat Five Different Colors of Food Healthy Habit #22:  Breathe Deeply for Two Minutes Healthy Habit #23:  Practice Yoga Three Times a Week Healthy Habit #24:  Sleep On Your Left Side Healthy Habit #25:  Eat Healthy Fats Healthy Habit #26:  Dilute Juice with Sparkling Water Healthy Habit #27:  Slow Alcohol Consumption with Water Healthy Habit #28:  Do Strength Training Healthy Habit #29:  Keep a Food Diary Healthy Habit #30:  Exercise during TV Commercials Healthy Habit #31:  Move, Don’t Use Technology Healthy Habit #32:  Eat a Teaspoon of Cinnamon Healthy Habit #33:  Use Acupressure to Treat Headache and Nausea Healthy Habit #34:  Get an Eye Exam Every Year Healthy Habit #35:  Wear Protective Eyewear Healthy Habit #36:  Quit Smoking Healthy Habit #37:  Pack Healthy Snacks Healthy Habit #38:  Pack Your Lunch Healthy Habit #39:  Eliminate Caffeine Healthy Habit #40:  Finish Your Antibiotics Healthy Habit #41:  Wear Sunscreen – Over SPF 15 Healthy Habit #42:  Wear a Helmet for Biking or Rollerblading Healthy Habit #43:  Wear Your Seatbelt Healthy Habit #44:  Get a Yearly Physical Healthy Habit #45:  Maintain a First Aid Kit Healthy Habit #46:  Eat a Banana Every Day Healthy Habit #47:  Use Coconut Oil to Moisturize Healthy Habit #48:  Pay Attention to Hunger Cues Healthy Habit #49:  Eat a Handful of Nuts Healthy Habit #50:  Get a Flu Shot Each Year Healthy Habit #51:  Practice Daily Meditation Healthy Habit #52:  Eliminate Artificial Sweeteners Healthy Habit #53:  Sanitize Your Kitchen Healthy Habit #54:  Walk 10,000 Steps a Day Healthy Habit #55:  Take a Multivitamin Healthy Habit #56:  Eat Fish Twice a Week Healthy Habit #57:  Add Healthy Foods to Your Diet Healthy Habit #58:  Avoid Liquid Calories Healthy Habit #59:  Give Your Eyes a Break Healthy Habit #60:  Protect Yourself from STDs Healthy Habit #61:  Get 20 Minutes of Sunshine Healthy Habit #62:  Become a Once a Week Vegetarian Healthy Habit #63:  Limit Sodium to 2,300 mg a Day Healthy Habit #64:  Cook 2+ Home Meals Each Week Healthy Habit #65:  Eat a Half Ounce of Dark Chocolate Healthy Habit #66:  Use Low Fat Salad Dressing Healthy Habit #67:  Eat Meals at the Table Healthy Habit #68:  Eat an Ounce of Chia Seeds Healthy Habit #69:  Choose Juices that Contain Pulp Healthy Habit #70:  Prepare Produce After Shopping
S.J. Scott (70 Healthy Habits - How to Eat Better, Feel Great, Get More Energy and Live a Healthy Lifestyle)
Oh, dear,” said Mom when I came downstairs. “You aren’t going to wear that to the dentist’s office, are you? Well, there’s no time to change. Let’s go.” “Mom,” I said. “Good morning. How are you doing? Listen, could I go to the dentist later? Important things to do today.” Mom wearily pointed to the yellow paper on the table that announced, THIS IS A 3-2-1 DAY, in bright red crayon. “Does that mean no, Mom?” I said. “Why don’t you just say so?” Mom shrugged her shoulders and looked at me sadly. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to go,” she said. “I can’t change the appointment now.” I picked up a napkin and scribbled a reply. SO LET’S GET MOVING. And we did, without even time for a piece of fruit. At Dr. Dory’s office, Ellen cried and fussed and had perfect teeth. I sat quietly through the whole exam and he found two cavities, my first. I was shocked! Mom was embarrassed. She pointed to the chart Dr. Dory keeps of all the kids who have perfect teeth. “Now you won’t get to be in the Great Teeth Club,” she said. “Maybe you need to brush longer. Ellen seems to spend more time at it than you.” I looked up at the bright, curved light over my head and thought about the sun shining on the even-tempered Turtle People. They would never get upset over teeth, such a small part of the big scheme of things.
Brenda Z. Guiberson (Turtle People)
Compared to most of its peers, Princeton is still by choice quite small, a face-to-face community located on a beautiful, tree-filled campus in an exurban colonial town. Its fewer than seven thousand students are taught and mentored by a faculty of over eleven hundred, giving it a 5:1 student-faculty ratio (in full-time equivalents), one of the lowest in the nation. This low ratio stems directly from Princeton’s philosophy of maintaining close personal contact between teachers and learners, and not only in innumerable Wilson-inspired precepts and seminars. The four-course plan, with its demanding (of both students and faculty) junior papers and senior theses, and comprehensive exams were, as Professor of English Charles G. Osgood emphasized on the eve of World War II, 'natural results' of the preceptorial system, Wilson’s reorganization of the curriculum, and 'the personal efforts of men whom Wilson brought to Princeton or advanced.
James L. Axtell (The Making of Princeton University: From Woodrow Wilson to the Present)
filling the form in.  She held up the photo and matched it with the wall, a tired, thinlooking girl looking out at her. It was set to the right of Oliver’s. They could have had them taken at the same time. She’d ask Mary.  Grace had said she had only been with Oliver — or at least that’s what the answers suggested. She’d have to ask her to make sure. It wasn’t unknown for homeless people to get into disagreements over love. When you’ve got nothing much to lose, the law doesn’t come into play when you’re asking yourself if you’re prepared to kill for someone.  Grace also admitted to being a regular heroin user and agreed to have an examination. She also said she didn’t have any diseases as far as she knew. She was the same age, too. Eighteen. Had they known each other before they’d become homeless? She’d have to find Grace to know the truth.  She went back to Oliver’s file and checked the date next to his signature. It said the seventh of September. Just under two months ago.  Jamie leafed to the next and only other page in the file. It was another shabbily photocopied sheet. Mary must have been doing them on her printer-scanner at home, creating them on her computer. She really did care. The sheet displayed a pixelated outline of the human body — no doubt an image pulled off the web and then stretched out to fill a page. The resolution was too low to keep any sort of detail, but the shape still came through okay. It was a human with their arms out, feet apart. At the top of the page, in Comic Sans, ‘Examination Sheet’ was written as the title.  In appropriately illegible handwriting for a doctor, notes had been jotted around the body. Parts had been circled with lines being drawn to the corresponding note. She read words like ‘graze’ and ‘lesion’. ‘Rash’ cropped up a few times. But there didn’t look to be anything sinister going on. The crooks of the elbows, as well as the ankles, were all circled several times but nothing was written at the sides. Those areas didn’t need explaining, though underneath, as if encapsulating the entire exam were the words ‘No signs of infection’. So he’d been relatively careful, then. Clean needles, at least. Under that, there was a little paragraph recommending a general blood panel, but overall, Oliver seemed to be in decent health. Nothing had been prescribed, it seemed.  She checked Grace’s and found it to be much the same, complete with triple circles around the elbows and ankles. Though her genital area had also been circled and the word ‘Rash’ had been written. At the bottom, a prescription had been written for azithromycin.  Jamie clicked her teeth together, rummaging in her brain for the name. Was it a gonorrhoea medication or chlamydia? She knew it was for an STD, she just couldn’t remember which. But that meant that where she’d put down ‘1’ for number of
Morgan Greene (Bare Skin (DS Jamie Johansson #1))
In places where people would help their friends by testifying, they also report a willingness to (1) give their friends insider company information, (2) lie about a friend’s medical exam to lower his insurance rates, and (3) exaggerate the quality of the cuisine at a friend’s restaurant in a published review. In these places, the “right” answer is to help your friend. People aren’t trying to distinguish themselves as relentlessly honest individuals governed by impartial principles. Instead, they are deeply loyal to their friends and want to cement enduring relationships, even if this involves illegal actions. In these places, being nepotistic is often the morally correct thing to do. By contrast, in WEIRD societies, many people think badly of those who weight family and friends over impartial principles and anonymous criteria like qualifications, merit, or effort.
Joseph Henrich (The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous)
Hector's mom stood there with wide open eyes and the soap powder was going all over the floor. “You see, Mom?” said Hector. “Buster really can talk and I'm not crazy after all. That's pretty weird, isn't it? I mean, it's pretty weird that I'm not crazy after all that studying and homework and exams and stuff.” Hector's mom continued to stand there, frozen to the spot. “Yo spilly yor sope poder, Misses Dumbo,” said Buster. Then Mrs Dumble fainted.
Neil McFarlane (Me Tawk Funny)
One of the most interesting experiments in this area came in 2011 when Sebastian Thrun, a top artificial intelligence researcher (and one of the main people behind Google’s driverless car), announced with a single email that he would be teaching his graduate-level AI course not only to students at Stanford but also as a MOOC available for free over the Internet. Over 160,000 students signed up for the course. Tens of thousands of them completed all exercises, exams, and other requirements, and some of them did quite well. The top performer in the course at Stanford, in fact, was only the 411th best among all the online students. As Thrun put it, “We just found over 400 people in the world who outperformed the top Stanford student.
Erik Brynjolfsson (The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies)
Vlaams Belang was pushed aside by N-VA for Open Vld and CD&V. “But the shadow of Vlaams Belang still hangs over the Flemish government's initial bill. Linking the integration exam to a residence permit, for example. Or a separate social security for foreigners. We've been convicted for that. They called it racism back then. Now the traditional parties are taking it over.
Filip Dewinter
There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making things. OLIVIA VANDERGRIFF SNOW IS THIGH-HIGH and the going slow. She plunges through drifts like a pack animal, Olivia Vandergriff, back to the boardinghouse on the edge of campus. Her last session ever of Linear Regression and Time Series Models has finally ended. The carillon on the quad peals five, but this close to the solstice, blackness closes around Olivia like midnight. Breath crusts her upper lip. She sucks it back in, and ice crystals coat her pharynx. The cold drives a metal filament up her nose. She could die out here, for real, five blocks from home. The novelty thrills her. December of senior year. The semester so close to over. She might stumble now, fall face-first, and still roll across the finish line. What’s left? A short-answer exam on survival analysis. Final paper in Intermediate Macroeconomics. Hundred and ten slide IDs in Masterpieces of World Art, her blow-off elective. Ten
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
Frank had a rule that he would dock the pay of any employee who worked through lunch, because he wanted his staff to be truly present for every afternoon patient—and it worked, and they thanked him. He taught his interns to stop outside the door of every exam room for around thirty seconds before entering to align themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. Some of his protégés said it was the single most valuable thing they learned over a three-year residency.
Juliet Funt (A Minute to Think: Reclaim Creativity, Conquer Busyness, and Do Your Best Work)
This is a big one. One of the most prominent sources of stress in peoples lives is the worry of things which MIGHT happen. We can all recall times when we have lost sleep over seemingly menial things. Will my new work colleagues like me? Will I fail my exam next week? What if bad weather ruins my garden party this weekend? The list is endless. However, continually fretting about things does us no good. It will only result in anxiety and unnecessary internal suffering, which in turn will affect our daily lives in a negative manner. Instead, and as
Katherine Chambers (Mental Toughness: A Psychologist’s Guide to Becoming Psychologically Strong - Develop Resilience, Self-Discipline & Willpower on Demand (Psychology Self-Help Book 13))
Connie? We are ready for you.” It was Professor Silva. Connie sat up. For a split second she faced the certainty that the exam had gone horribly, she had failed, she would have to leave school. But then Connie saw Janine’s kind face, framed with ruddy tangles of hair, break into a delighted grin. She threaded an arm around Connie’s waist and whispered, “We’re celebrating at Abner’s after this!” And she knew that it was really about to be over.
Katherine Howe (The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane)
Exams also give us a concrete example of Dan’s attempts to promote understanding over memorization. He encourages students to bring with them a ‘cheat sheet’, which can include anything they want. He does not want students being tested on whether they can remember the formula for the standard error of a distribution, and does not believe that it will be helpful for them to do so. Allowing cheat sheets means that students can bring more than just formulas with them: if they were struggling with a topic, they could bring all sorts of pre-cooked explanations to help them with the exam questions. In turn, this acts as an extra incentive to Dan to set questions that rely on a deeper understanding.
David Franklin (Invisible Learning: The magic behind Dan Levy's legendary Harvard statistics course)
Other states also reoriented their telling of regional and national history. In Maharashtra, in the rewriting of history textbooks, a drastic cut was made in the book for class 7: the chapter on the Mughal Empire under Akbar was cut down to three lines.78 Uttar Pradesh simply deleted the Mughal Empire from some of its history textbooks,79 while the University of Delhi drastically reduced the study of this period in its history curriculum.80 In the syllabus of Nagpur University, a chapter that discussed the roles of the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha, and the Muslim League in the making of communalism has been replaced by another one titled “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Role in Nation Building.”81 Alongside official examinations in Uttar Pradesh, the Sangh Parivar organized a test of general culture open to all schools in the state. According to the brochure designed to help students prepare for this test, which Amit Shah released in Lucknow in August 2017, India was a Hindu Rashtra, and Swami Vivekananda had defended Hindutva in Chicago in 1893.82 In Karnataka, after canceling Tipu Sultan Jayanti, the festival that the state used to organize to celebrate the birth of this eighteenth-century Muslim ruler, the BJP government also dropped the chapter dealing with this historical figure from the class 7 textbook in 2019.83 This decision was made in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that had led the government of India to ask all states to reduce syllabi for students in classes 1 through 10 by 30 percent, in light of the learning challenges brought about by the lockdown.84 The decision of the Karnataka government, in fact, fit in with a larger picture. Under cover of the pandemic, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), India’s largest education board, decided that all over India “government-run schools no longer have to teach chapters on democratic rights, secularism, federalism, and citizenship, among other topics.”85 To foster assimilation of knowledge that amounted to propaganda, final exams have increasingly focused on the heroic deeds of Hindu icons and reforms initiated by the Modi government, even on the person of the prime minister.
Christophe Jaffrelot (Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy)
The economics exam at Lucknow University for the bachelor of commerce (BCom) asked students to evaluate schemes launched by Modi, such as Digital India (to develop digitization throughout the country) and Startup India, or to describe job-creation schemes.86 The civil service exam went even further. In Madhya Pradesh, candidates to join the state administration were thus asked in 2016: “The Swachh Bharat campaign led by the honorable Prime Minister has a great impact on the society because 1) People understood the importance of cleanliness, and 2) People across the country like the campaign.”87 The trap was obviously only discernible to Modi supporters: both answers were correct! The nationalist tone of textbook rewriting deliberately extols ancient Indian knowledge systems over contemporary science.88 For instance, the minister of state for human resource development responsible for higher education, Satya Pal Singh, denied the validity of the theory of evolution89 and in one of his speeches claimed that it was an Indian who invented the airplane.90 The deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh maintained that the test-tube baby procedure had existed in ancient India because Ram’s wife, Sita, was born in an earthen pot, while the chief minister of Tripura, Biplab Kumar Deb, explained that the technologies of satellites and the internet existed in ancient India.91 In the same vein, the education minister of Rajasthan claimed that the law of gravity had been discovered in India in the seventh century.92 And along the same lines, another BJP minister—health, education, and finance minister in Assam—claimed that cancer patients were paying for their “sins.”93
Christophe Jaffrelot (Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy)
Break the music into small, easy pieces. It is far better to learn a small section of music well than to learn the whole piece poorly. For example, take the first phrase and practice it according to the Principles given below. Learn that much well. You'll have a sense of satisfaction. Learning the entire piece badly will only leave you frustrated. Once the first phrase is done, do the next and so on. Do not worry that the whole piece may not get done before the lesson date. Remember, the lesson is NOT a final exam only a progress check. 2. Practice hands separately, then together. Begin any diffiuclt tune by working with each hand separately. When each hand has become fairly competent at playing its part, try playing slowly with hands together. SLOWLY! There are errors that will only appear once you try to play two-handed. Just as slow practice helps us overcome difficulties in each hand, it will fix these two-handed problems as well. This point, hands separately then together, and the next regarding slow practice are "sure cures for what ails you." 3. Practice slowly at first to gain accuracy, and then speed up a little at a time. This is another point of obvious common sense which most students don't heed. Since we can hear the music in our minds at full speed, our impatience leads us to repeat a section of music over and over and over at this speed with little improvement. Simply slow it down, whether playing hands separately or both together, learn to play well at that speed, and then increase the speed GRADUALLY while you maintain complete accuracy. Curb your impatience and make the hands slow down so that the mistakes disappear.
Dan Starr (How to Practice Joyfully and Successfully)
am one of the best exam-takers in Delhi, and so I must be one of the very best in the world. The Chinese are my only competition. There must be thousands of me over there, advancing the careers of the chubby children of communist officials, always fearing the bullet in the back of the head, or being packed off to one of those re-education camps they’ve put the Muslims in, or worse, being sent to make iPhones in the Shenzhen factories with the suicide nets.
Rahul Raina (How to Kidnap the Rich)
étaler /etale/ I. vtr 1. (déployer) to spread out [carte, document, drap]; to lay [nappe, moquette]; to spread [tapis]; (Culin) to roll [sth] out [pâte]; (Jeux) to lay down [cartes] 2. (éparpiller) to scatter [papiers, affaires, livres] 3. (répandre) to spread [beurre, pâté, colle]; to apply [peinture, maquillage, pommade] 4. (échelonner) to spread [travaux, réformes, remboursements] (sur "over"); to stagger [départs, horaires, vacances] (sur "over") 5. (exhiber) to flaunt [richesse, pouvoir, succès]; to show off [savoir, charmes]; to parade [misère] • ~ au grand jour | to bring [sth] out into the open [divergences, vie privée] 6. (montrer) to display [articles, marchandise] 7. ○(faire tomber) to lay [sb] out (familier) [personne] II. vpr 1. (se répandre) [beurre, peinture] to spread • peinture qui s'étale difficilement | paint which does not spread very well 2. (s'échelonner) [programme, paiement, embouteillage] to be spread (sur "over"); [horaires, départs] to be staggered (sur "over") 3. (s'exhiber) [richesse] to be flaunted • s'~ (au grand jour) | [corruption, lâcheté] to be plain for all to see • une photo/un titre qui s'étale en première page d'un journal | a photo/a headline that is splashed all over the front page of a newspaper • une affiche qui s'étale sur tous les murs de la ville | a poster that is splashed all over the walls in town 4. (s'étendre) [paysage] to spread out; [ville] to spread out, to sprawl • s'~ jusqu'à la mer | to spread out as far as the sea 5. (se vautrer) [personne] to sprawl; (prendre de la place) [personne] to spread out • s'~ sur le divan | to sprawl on the couch 6. ○(tomber) to go sprawling (familier) • s'~ de tout son long | to fall flat on one's face 7. ○(échouer) to fail • s'~ or se faire ~ à un examen | to fail ou flunk (familier) an exam
Synapse Développement (Oxford Hachette French - English Dictionary (French Edition))
Hitting your puppy does nothing to help potty-train her, but what it will do is make her afraid of you. Bailey doesn’t know where she’s supposed to potty at this age, so it’s up to you to help her learn. Believe it or not, accidents in the house are people problems, not puppy problems.” “Told you,” Allison said under her breath, looking down at her hands. “Huh. So, no smacks?” Morgan shook her head vigorously. “No smacks, ever, for any reason.” Jared frowned. “Everybody’s a snowflake these days, I guess.” He leaned over in front of his puppy on the exam table. “Want to talk about your feelings, Bailey? Will that keep you from shitting in the house?” Allison laughed nervously. “Jared, stop.” “I know some excellent puppy trainers I can refer you to,” Morgan said, looking at Allison. “They can help you with potty-training.” She glanced at Jared. “Manners too.
Victoria Schade (Dog Friendly)
étendre /etɑ̃dʀ/ I. vtr 1. (allonger) to stretch [bras, jambe] • il a étendu les bras/jambes | he stretched his arms/legs 2. (déployer) to spread (out) [bâche, nappe] • ~ du linge (dehors) to hang out washing; (dedans) to hang up washing 3. (coucher) to lay [sb] down [malade, blessé] • ~ qn (sur le carreau) (informal) (blesser) to lay sb out cold (familier), to floor GB sb; (tuer) to kill sb • ~ qn d'un coup de poing (informal) | to knock sb out • se faire ~ à un examen (informal) | to flunk (familier) an exam • ils se sont fait ~ par l'équipe adverse (informal) | they got thrashed (familier) by the opposing team 4. (diluer) to dilute, to water down [vin, solution] 5. (étaler) to spread [enduit, peinture, beurre]; (Culin) to roll out [pâte] 6. (accroître) to extend [emprise, pouvoir] (sur "over"); to extend [mesure, allocation, aide, embargo] (à "to") • il faut ~ le champ de nos connaissances | we must extend our range of knowledge • la société a étendu ses activités à de nouveaux secteurs | the company branched out into new fields II. vpr 1. (occuper un espace) to stretch (sur "over") • s'~ à perte de vue | to extend ou stretch as far as the eye can see • la forêt s'étend sur 10 000 km2 | the forest stretches over 10,000 square kilometres GB 2. (augmenter) [grève, épidémie, sécheresse, récession] to spread (à "to"); [ville] to expand, to grow 3. (s'appliquer) s'étendre à • [loi, mesure] to apply to 4. (durer) to stretch (sur "over"), last • la Renaissance s'étend de la fin du XVe siècle au milieu du XVIe siècle | the Renaissance stretched from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th century • les travaux s'étendront sur trois ans | the work will last three years 5. (s'allonger) to lie down 6. (s'appesantir) s'étendre sur • to dwell on [sujet, point]
Synapse Développement (Oxford Hachette French - English Dictionary (French Edition))
I would take a dental exam over sex. I like my dentist.
Reese Morrison (Love Unlimited (Love Language, #4))
An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics. The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist." Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute. Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all. His answer consisted of two words: "What chair?
Philosophy 201
An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics. The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist." Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute. Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all. His answer consisted of two words: "What chair?
Philosophy 404
LEE’S BREAD DIPPING SAUCE ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon dried rosemary 1 teaspoon dried basil 1 teaspoon dried parsley 1 teaspoon garlic powder ½ teaspoon salt ¼ cup really good quality extra-virgin olive oil Mix all the ingredients except the olive oil. Put in a shallow pan or bowl. Pour olive oil over the spices. Serve with Italian or French bread. (You can add more oil if needed.)
Carol J. Perry (Final Exam (Witch City Mystery #8))
J.A.’s homework schedule was no joke. Every week there was a new short story due, and for those Penny wrote about squirrel crime mobs, post-apocalyptic plagues that only took out people over nineteen, colleges in the future where the entrance exams were assassinations, and a Buddhist who died and came back as a toy. Building a world where you rappel in, set up some characters, and ejector seat your way out was a breeze.
Mary H.K. Choi (Emergency Contact)
Hiring and paying ones own regulators is as easy as hiring a private rent-a-cop. In Canada, for about $100 million, the financial industry can fund any of our Securities Commissions, and the ability to then obtain exemptions to the law from the regulator, is by itself worth hundreds of billions. Just ONE exemption to the law, can earn billions. Capturing and funding regulators is the simply best (but corrupt) investment any industry can make. Another example comes to us from Boeing in late 2019, with the 737 Max, and the news that Boeing’s influence over the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA ) was powerful enough to allow Boeing itself to legally approve its own aircraft, which is like being able to mark your own exams…(or print your own money).
Larry Elford (Farming Humans: Easy Money (Non Fiction Financial Murder Book 1))