27 is to ___ as 7 is to 51....

"WHAAAAAAAAT?!"

   So, yeah, this was me about 3 minutes in to taking the Miller Analogies Test. (I changed the question, as I am firmly against getting sued for release of test question material... Teacher habit.) As I sat there in the 6 by 12 room (or similar dimensions), questions like these were repeated fired at me from the cold, calculating computer screen. I'm pretty sure the computer was mocking me at one point... I think I subliminally saw the phrase, "Just Google it!" about a million and seven times.

 I'm not the world's greatest anything, but test-taker is among the highest on my list of lows... As I watched the count-down clock ticking away in the upper-left hand corner of the screen, I continually wondered a few things:

1.) "Where did this question come from?" - I mean, honestly, some (MANY) of these words, I'd never even heard of. I consider myself to be a somewhat educated person. How I'm supposed to know anything about vexillolicology (sp?), is completely beyond me... though it WAS expected to be known on the test.

2.) "Who makes these analogies up?" - Who has the time/money/effort to sit around all day, strung out on crack, flipping through a thesaurus, and dreaming about the various ways to mentally torture prospective graduate students? **NOTE: If this is your job, you can just email me the application. I'll even list you as a reference.

3.) "Why is it important for me to know the correlation between "X" and "Y"? - Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to be said for being able to know that up is the opposite of down or that parallelograms have equal spacing between each set of lines… I just can’t wrap my brain around trying to figure out why someone would ever WANT to know that; or for that matter, WHY it’s important…

4.) “How much money are these people making by screwing with people’s minds?!” – O.M.G. If ever person who enter graduate school has to take this mind-bomb (at $70 a pop, no less) or a similar test called the GRE (which costs $160 to take), why is there an educational budget shortfall?!?!?! If College XYZ makes 2,700 grad students take the MAT it’s $189,000 per SEMESTER. What’s more is that if that same 2,700 take the GRE it’s an astounding $432,000 per semester. So, why can’t we get any more financial aid?! (ANSWER: Because the only people who get any substantial financial aid are those without a job, 2,354 kids, and a single parent… who is also on food stamps, drives a 2010 Land Rover, and steals cable from their neighbors. Yeah, I said it. Life sucks.) See? I know the answers to SOME questions! Just not the questions that count towards bettering myh future..

P.S. I failed the test by 1, I'll repeat it, ONE point... Good grief, Charlie Brown.