SCANTRON.TXT

                            MASTERING THE SCANTRON

    We all know what the SCANTRON is don't we???  The SCANTRON are those
    little cards with the little bubbles and rectangles that our precious
    teachers expect us to fill in with those #2 pencils. In the past, you
    had some machine zap through the cards only to tell you that you have
    failed biology.  This meant that mom and dad are gonna take your
    computer, telephone and nights on the town and stuff them in their
    closet.  Well, worry no more.  A group of brilliant people from the
    Armed Forces Pirating Guild have come up with a simple but workable
    method to evade those little red slashes.

                               ***EXPLANATION**

    Scantron machines detect right or wrong answers by picking up on lead
    #2 pencil marks.  If nothing has been marked at all in the given space,
    then your answer will be marked wrong.  However, if there is neither a
    dark pencil mark nor a blank, the machine will get a little confused and
    simply not mark anything.  You might say to yourself "Well what about
    the score printed at the end of the test??". Scantron machines assign a
    variable to the number of possible point and the number of problems
    wrong.  Then it subtracts one from the other and prints the answer at
    the bottom.  The little red marks beside your answers represent the
    number wrong, however if there is no red mark, then there is simply
    "nothing wrong" as far as the machine is concerned.  And we all know
    that our beloved teachers pay no attention and leave all the adding to
    those wonderful little machines.

                       ***HOW TO AVOID THE RED MARKS***

    There are two types of fill sheets one can receive, ones with the
    circles to fill in and ones with the rectangles to fill in. On the ones
    with the circles, there is one way to avoid a slash.  IF THE CIRCLE IS
    LIGHTLY SHADED IN, TOO LIGHT FOR THE MACHINE AND TOO DARK FOR THE
    TEACHER TO QUESTION,THE MACHINE WILL GET CONFUSED AND SIMPLY LEAVE YOUR
    ANSWER BE.  Once again, if there is no mark the machine does not
    subtract from the total possible and the teacher does not notice.
    Don't get it wrong though, the computer will mark a circle that has not
    been filled in as all 'wrong'.  The only trick is to lightly fill it in
    with the correct tint. Now, for the rectangles.  The same method
    described for the circles will also work for the rectangle form along
    with another method.  This method is drawing many diagonal light lines
    through the rectangle.  However this method is not recommended because
    teacher will probably catch on (some teachers are really stupid
    though).  One more note: Finals are coming.  Start practicing!!!

               --- Additional Info on Test Taking (by MST) ---

    To strategically avoid the risk of totally blowing a test, it is
    obviously best to skim quickly through all questions, answering those
    you are sure of with the usual dark pencil marks.  On the second pass,
    take time to answer questions you can figure out the answers to with
    confidence.  On the third pass, use a process of elimination to get
    rid of the obvious wrong answers for each question & make your best
    guess using the light marking technique outlined above.  On the fourth
    and final run through, guess at those questions about which you have
    no clue.  Use this opportunity to experiment with different lightness
    and darkness of the markings (what can you lose?) and when you get
    the test results back, check to see exactly how light you made the
    marks which fooled the ScanTron machine.  If you usually run out of
    time while taking tests, keep an eye on the clock and give yourself
    a few minutes near the end to run through and make the special marks.
    An alternative to this would be to skim the test first for questions
    that you know you cannot answer and mark them using this technique.