I never took it, but here’s a guy who retook it at age 35. The analytic geometry question was easy for me, but I didn’t take the time to try to figure out the covered polygon. I assume I’d probably do pretty well on it, even now.
How did I get two degrees from Ann Arbor without taking the SAT? By spending the first two years at community college.
And boy, can I identify with this:
Because I work on a computer like normal human beings, I’d forgotten how painful it can be to write in longhand for long stretches of time. I know it’s not as bad as digging trenches in the Amazon, but still—it’s AGONY. Your neck gets sore from staring down. You get that weird dent in your middle finger and thumb from pressing the pencil too hard. Everything around you starts to smell like old pencil shavings. This is why I fucking hated blue-book exams in high school and college. It wasn’t that I had to study, or that I had to think on the fly. It was the hard LABOR of it all. Every time I finished a blue-book exam in school, I felt as if I had just moved a cord of firewood. Many times, I would hurry up and try and finish the essay early, just so that I could stop writing and rest. It’s amazing, when you think about it. You spend a whole semester studying for some test, and then you rush it because you just want five extra minutes to relax. That’s how my brain works. It’s not a perfect organ.
I am so fortunate that computers came along when they did. My writing volume would be a tiny fraction of what it is if I had to write long hand.
In his East Room address in July concerning the debt ceiling negotiations, Mr. Obama blamed “a significant number of Republicans in Congress (who) are insisting on a cuts-only approach.” As we now know, this was not the reason the negotiations failed. While some Republicans may have wanted such an agreement, their leadership was prepared to agree to some $800 billion in higher taxes. In any event, it wasn’t the cuts-only crowd that balked; it was the president. Railing at the GOP wasn’t a smart move; petulance does not become the Commander in Chief. In the end, both Mr. Obama and Congress suffered a decline in approval ratings.
As Americans learn the truth of this failed effort, they may start to question other aspects of the White House narrative. They may wonder whether the president blocked the Keystone XL pipeline out of safety concerns or to appease environmentalists whose support he needs, or whether Obamacare will in fact slow the rise in healthcare costs. They may even begin to question whether millionaires and billionaires actually pay less in taxes than their secretaries. Losing credibility is a terrible thing; on the other hand, Mr. Obama’s loss may be the country’s gain.
Let’s hope.
“Obama loses credibility” is an evergreen headline. Or should be.
