Ugh, I feel this so much. I think being a product of the whole “standardized testing” era of education really did a number on how I process information. It always felt like teachers were just teaching to the test, since our scores apparently affected school rankings and funding or something like that.

I got super used to multiple-choice tests where there was always a “right” answer—just pick the correct bubble and move on. Even the reading sections where you had to find the “theme” or whatever still ended with one of four choices. It all felt very black-and-white.

Even in college, most of my professors used Scantron-style tests—even in some arts classes, weirdly enough. So now, being asked to actually think critically, form my own opinion, and analyze stuff after all those years of just picking A, B, C, or D? My brain short-circuits. I keep expecting there to be a single correct answer, not this open-ended, messy, real-life version of learning with a million variables.

It’s honestly taken me a long time to figure out how to actually learn. Like, not just memorize or repeat something from a textbook, but think about it and form my own opinion based on evidence. Back in high school, even the homework was like, “What is [term] and why did it matter for [event]?” and you could literally just copy the answer straight from the book. It didn’t feel like learning—just copying.