PSAT

As if I don't do enough driving back and forth to White Lake (I average between 900 and 1200 miles a week, M-F) Thomas had to be taken back to school AGAIN today, even though it is Saturday. Thomas had to be at school by 7:45 to be herded into a small room with a small group of other hapless students so they could sit for three hours to take the PSAT test. The test becomes more important next year, when he gears up to fill out his university applications and apply for scholarships, so this year was just a practice. The test had 6 parts: 2 on math, 2 on critical thinking/writing and 2 on "vocabulary." I went and worked at a Starbucks while he was taking the test, and was subjected to two hours of old men nattering ("I baked the fish in wine sauce--got nice and crispy. It was a meal to remember." "Schnauzers are mean little bastards. Very protective." "Well, I should be getting home to clean the garage. Say, how are the kids doing these days?") while I tried to wade my way through a pile of terrible papers on Plato's Republic. When I went to pick up Thomas, he seemed fairly pleased with the math and critical thinking/writing sections but was peevish about the vocabulary sections. For one set of questions, they had to pick a term that would replace a word underlined, preserving as best they could the meaning of the sentence. He said he was mystified by the question that asked him to replace "arcane" in the question, "What term best describes the main character in the title Father's Arcane Daughter?" First, how do we know who the main character is? Second, who the hell describes a daughter as "arcane"? He picked enigmatic but is certain it was wrong. Here is Thomas's practice book--a fat lot of good it did, gripes Thomas.