4.0 Student Claims Test Was ‘Impossible,’ Makes 98
Bethany Salinsky, a sophomore political science major, completed her first ECON 203 exam on Thursday, October 12th. Unlike most students in the class, Salinsky spent two full weeks preparing for the exam, making routine visits to the quiet section of Evans Library. With a 4.0 GPR, the last call Salinsky wanted to make to her mom was about getting her first B on an exam.
On the day of the exam, Salinsky arrived 15 minutes early and tried to engage in conversation with a student, Shelley Witman, sitting next to her, despite Witman frantically flipping through her notes. “I don’t feel prepared,” said Salinsky. “What did you get for the last problem on Test Review number 3?” Witman, with a worried, sleep-deprived look, reportedly replied, “Uhh, I don’t know. I wasn’t able to get that far.”
As students began taking the exam, Salinsky was one of the first to finish. She made her way up the stairs of HECC 207, went out the door, and immediately opened her notes to see what she may have missed. As the rest of the students left the exam, Salinsky approached Witman.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Whitman. “As I tried to quickly make my way to the Starbucks in Library, this Bethany girl tapped me on the shoulder and wanted to talk about the test.”
“That test was impossible, wasn’t it?” asked Salinsky. Blocking Witman from her beeline to Starbucks, Salinsky continued to ramble about how difficult she thought the test was while embedding questions like “What did you get for short-answer problem 4?” Humoring Salinsky, Witman simply smiled and nodded her head throughout the conversation.
As each day passed, Salinsky frequently monitored her eCampus account before receiving the notification from the grade icon on the top right of her screen. When Salinsky opened the page, she was horrified. “What?!” she said. “A 98?! What two points could I have missed?!”
—Good Bullogna
Her ascent to the highest social class began in first grade, when she consistently brought the coolest lunch—Lunchables—to school each day, toting them in her Vera Bradley lunchbox. Never mind the fact that she only had Lunchables because her parents were too busy working high-stress careers to make her anything else, and she only had a Vera Bradley lunchbox because her parents bought her name-brand items to distract from their lack of engagement in her everyday life; Good Bullonga turned out just fine, if you ignore her crippling abandonment issues.