When I began at Bucknell in 1974, I sat for a series of placement exams, mostly for subjects like math and foreign language. However, I also took a test that could hardly have been formulated to measure academic aptitude. It featured dozens of odd questions, including three that left 750 freshmen scratching our heads: Do you take stairs one, two, or three at a time? What’s your favorite kitchen utensil? Do you prefer your carrots raw or cooked? The third question prompted us to dub this weird questionnaire “the raw carrots test”, and as far as any of us could tell, it was some kind of psychology experiment, designed to probe the inner psychic recesses of the incoming freshman class. Many of us regarded it as invasive; after all, what exactly was the university trying to figure out about us? Many of us also bristled at the abuse of authority, and some of us (including me) even committed a defiant act of civil disobedience that involved the simultaneous flushing of 100 toilets around campus. Woosh!
In the years since, my view on that test has softened. In fact, these days I administer a similar test to my students at Pingry. It’s mostly for fun on Friday afternoons late in the semester, a break from the routine of books and papers. But I also think that there is some value in such an exercise; maybe it can reveal a bit of who we are, sort of like a verbal Rorschach test. So I ask goofy questions, just like my alma mater: Would you rather lose hair or gain weight? If you could listen to one musical genre for the rest of your life, what would it be? What’s your favorite dog breed? Admittedly, some of these questions are meant to be funny, but some are semi-serious. And it is a recent response to one of those semi-serious questions that I want to highlight here, not to expose a student’s particular psychological quirk, but rather to share and extol the wisdom I found in her answer. To me, it is something from which we all can learn.
The question is a simple one: When you are heading off to take the SAT (or ACT), how many pencils do you take with you? I have been asking it for years, and as you can imagine, I have read a wide variety of responses. Some students, perhaps ruled by reckless abandon, have answered one; the more neurotic have cited numbers that would match the winning score for a varsity basketball team. And just as you might think such a question would elicit many numbers in between, so students have made a myriad of calculations. One student said sixteen in the hopes that might inspire a sixteen hundred on the ensuing test (a perfect score). Another said something about a number that lined up with Einstein’s birthday. And practical-minded students have often cited numbers in the four-to-six range. Of course, each answer has a rationale behind it, and I suppose that’s what says something about the person’s response.
Recently, a student gave an answer that, in my best recollection, I hadn’t heard before: three. Intrigued, I asked her why that number. She said, “Well, of course, I need at least one pencil to take the test.” I kept going: “What’s the second pencil for?” She said, “In case my pencil point breaks.” Then I asked, “What’s the third pencil for?” And she said, “In case someone else’s pencil point breaks.” Like many great insights, the simplicity of her remark is what struck me first. Of course. But the more I thought about it, the deeper its profundity struck me, and the more its significance transcended the particular circumstances of the question that had prompted it. That answer wasn’t just about pencils, or the SAT, for that matter. It was about something way more important. And what it said about the student is worth celebrating here.
Having said that, I don’t want to make too much of one little question from a humorous classroom interlude on a Friday afternoon. And keep in mind that I opened this essay by mocking the psychological profile test I took as a freshman at Bucknell. I don’t think the university learned much about me from that test although, in case you’re wondering, I prefer my carrots cooked. But three pencils for the SAT? That does say something about the person behind the answer. We all know the importance of standardized testing. As I prepared for the SAT back in 1973, it was all about getting the highest score I could. Get a good night’s sleep, get a hearty breakfast, get to the center early for a good seat, and yes, show up with a fistful of number 2 pencils. With so much on the line, my focus was completely egocentric, and understandably so. During the test, I gave little thought to the eighty-plus students around me. But to the person who got up to face those very same conditions, and who thought to pack a third pencil for someone else, I tip my hat. That’s the kind of thinking that makes me both proud to be at Pingry, and hopeful for our future.
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Author photo by Anthony "Truncs" Truncale '26
To contact the author: Mr. Keating