MOAT

....the Mother Of All Tests.

Except that Rebekah's history teacher gives a MOAT each term. Seems to me that something like the MOAT which is aptly named to inspire fear...or motivation to study....would be an enormous test only given once a year or perhaps once each semester. But no, once a term it is. The test is all about historical who's and what's and when's. It's worth a whopping 300 points....because the kids have to have the exact definition word-for-word perfect. It doesn't matter if they have explained the word, person or event correctly....if there is even a "it" or "and" or any other word out of order or left out....minus 5 points. (Which bothers me, actually. What's the point? I'm seriously considering an email to the teacher...)

Rebekah was rather stressed about this term's MOAT. She didn't feel ready. She even got to the point where she floated the idea past me of allowing her to miss her history class the next day so she'd have an extra day to study and would be able to officially make up the test because of an absence. I reminded her that just the day before, she had spent her evening at a friend's house watching "The Bachelor" finale and that frankly I didn't feel overly sorry for her. And yet....I did take slight pause. Rebekah has a 3.9 GPA that she is trying to maintain. And that GPA is important when it comes to scholarship and college opportunities. But darn it all, she needed to learn a lesson about procrastination and responsibility, yes?

Rebekah studied and studied. And after I got tired of quizzing her, I went to bed and she stayed up late studying some more. I think we were both surprised (and relieved) when she got a full 300 points on the test! I'm not sure she truly learned her lesson on procrastination however. Seeing as just a few days later she left her end of term english essay on "The Grapes of Wrath" to the very last day of term...finished it with just 10 minutes to spare before the official drop dead due date and time. Sigh.