Studying And Test Taking Quotes

I'll turn my back, unless you think you need help getting dressed." Lord, he silently prayed, pleased don't test my chivalry that far!
"I can manage, thank you very much!" she returned tightly.
Turning his back, Rider grinned and lifted his eyes to heaven. "Thanks, big Fellah."
"Did you say something?" Willow inquired.
Rider kept a steady gaze on the trees. "Just talking to myself."
He heard her mumble something about crazy people talking to themselves before she announced it safe for him to turn around. He did and was given an immediate jolt. She wore not her usual shirt and pants,but a clean nightshirt and wrapper. However,it wasn't her scanty attire that startled him as much as her pain-glazed eyes.
"My God,what is it?" Stunned, his hands automatically came up under both her elbows to steady her. "Are you in pain?" A thought came to him then. He hesitated, studying his boots. "Is it...I've got sisters, so don't be embarrassed.Is it your woman's time?" Rider's ears reddened, but it was nothing compared to Willow's high color.
She jerked away from his touch, squeezed her eyes shut, and cradled her forehead in one hand. "And I wondered what else could go wrong," she muttered under her breath.
"What?"
"Dammit,Sinclair, men aren't suppose to talk to women about those things. ~ Charlotte McPherren

Taking the leap is just the first step. Then you must cross the desert. And make no mistake - that journey will be hell."
"Will it be worth it?" he asked.
"You tell me," the old man responded. "How worthy is your goal? And how big is your why?"
"I can't imagine anything better," he affirmed.
"Then yes, it will be worth it. You see, everyone who stands at the edge of this cliff sees something different on the other side. What you see on the other side is your particular goal, and that is unique to you.
"But there's a reason why you have not achieved that goal yet - you are not worthy of it. You have not become who you need to become to deserve it.
"As you cross the desert to your promised land, you will endure tests and trials specific to you and your goal. If you persist, those test and trials will transform you into who you need to be to be worthy of your goal.
"You can't achieve your highest, noblest goals as the same person you are today. To get from where you are to where you want to be you have to change who you are.
"And that is why no one can escape that journey - it is what transforms you into a person worthy of your goal. The bad news is that that journey is hell. The good news is that you get to pick your hell."
"Pick my hell?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
"Because of your natural gifts and interests, your inborn passion and purpose, there are some hells that are more tolerable to you than others.
"For ex ~ Stephen Palmer

I turn to head outside when the boys make their way back into the house. Kel stops in the doorway and puts his hands on his hips, then looks up at me.
"Are you my sister's boyfriend?"
I'm thrown off by his directness. I pull my jacket on and shake my head. "Um, no. Just her friend."
"She told my mom you were taking her on a date. I thought only boyfriends took girls on dates."
"Well," I pause. "Sometimes boys take girls on dates to see if they want them to be their girlfriend."
I notice Caulder standing beside me, taking in the conversation as if he's just as curious. I wasn't prepared to have to explain the rules of dating right now.
"So it's like a test?" Caulder asks. "To see if you want Layken to be your girlfriend?"
I shrug and nod. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."
Kel laughs. "You aren't gonna like her. She burps a lot. And she's bossy. And she never lets me drink coffee, so she probably won't let you have any, either. And she has really bad taste in music and sings way too loud and leaves her bras all over the house. It's gross."
I laugh. "Thanks for the warning. You think it's too late to back out now?"
Kel shakes his head, missing my sarcasm completely. "No, she's already dressed so you have to take her now."
I sigh, pretending to be annoyed. "Well, it's just a few hours. Hopefully she won't burp a lot and boss me around and steal my coffee and sing to her really bad music and leave her bra in my car."
Colleen Hoover

How is true possession to be distinguished from fraud or the symptoms of disease? The Church prescribes four tests - the language test, the test of preternatural physical strength, the test of levitation and the test of clairvoyance and prevision. If a person can on occasion understand, or better still, speak a language, of which, in his normal state, he is completely ignorant; if he can manifest the physical miracle of levitation or perform unaccountable feats of strength, and if he can correctly predict the future or describe events taking place at a distance - then that person may be presumed to be possessed by devils. (Alternatively, he may be presumed to be the recipient of extraordinary graces; for in many instances divine and infernal miracles are, most unhappily, identical. The levitation of saintly ecstatic is distinguishable from the levitation of ecstatics demoniacs only in virtue of the moral antecedents and consequences of the event. These moral antecedents and consequences are often hard to assess, and it has sometimes happened that even the holiest persons have been suspected of producing their ESP phenomena and their PK effects by diabolic means.) ~ Aldous Huxley

To be happily married, as I've been fortunate enough to be, is to be a partner in a conversation that can last a full adult life. To have a true friend is to be able to test your hypotheses against someone who's receptive, but who won't give ground forever, and then let your friend try his wares out on you. At its best, friendly conversation is about giving up all claims to property and priority and engaging in collaboration--so that, at least for the two of you, something like an improvised musical composition in two parts is taking place. You do some rhythm to his lead; he lays down a bass line when you want to run the thing out into space. You both wind up saying things and thinking things that, alone, you never could have. This kind of hybrid mixing, this collaborative creation, is greatly to be treasured: it's one of the best parts of life. ~ Mark Edmundson

I have been sad almost a whole year, thinking that taking that test was somehow the end of my learning and that not having that as a possibility in my future left a big empty spot in my life that the children and the ranch didn't fill. But my life is not like that, it is a tree, and I can stay in one place and spread out in all directions, and I can do more learning shading this brood of mine than if I was all alone. ~ Nancy E. Turner

Adventure, opportunity and reward extend beyond our field of vision, and are made known to us only when we test our wings. ~ Gina Greenlee

All social orders command their members to imbibe in pipe dreams of posterity, the mirage of immortality, to keep them ahead of the extinction that would ensue in a few generations if the species did not replenish itself. This is the implicit, and most pestiferous, rationale for propagation: to become fully integrated into a society, one must offer it fresh blood. Naturally, the average set of parents does not conceive of their conception as a sacrificial act. These are civilized human beings we are talking about, and thus they are quite able to fill their heads with a panoply of less barbaric rationales for reproduction, among them being the consolidation of a spousal relationship; the expectation of new and enjoyable experiences in the parental role; the hope that one will pass the test as a mother or father; the pleasing of one's own parents, not to forget their parents and possibly a great-grandparent still loitering about; the serenity of taking one's place in the seemingly deathless lineage of a familial enterprise; the creation of individuals who will care for their paternal and maternal selves in their dotage; the quelling of a sense of guilt or selfishness for not having done their duty as human beings; and the squelching of that faint pathos that is associated with the childless. Such are some of the overpowering pressures upon those who would fertilize the future. These pressures build up in people throughout their lifetimes and must be released, just as everyone m ~ Thomas Ligotti

Engagement, and its relationship to the accumulation and processing of information, is a little-studied phenomenon, representing as it does, individual skills rather than those that can be measured in a group of people. Currently, our understanding and measurement of human intellectual capacity is oriented toward group skills and toward activities that can be elicited on command, regardless of the state of engagement. Indeed, being able to engage one's focus on the questions of the examiner, rather than on one's own interest, is the primary measure of test-taking ability, and test-taking ability is the primary measure of intelligence. When we find that animals do not do well when compared to people in this way, we must not assume that we have really measured their intellect. Perhaps we have measured only our own limited ability to engage them. ~ Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

It's about seeing how much they can get away with not telling you. This is just a test. Thieves start out by taking candy bars, just to see if they can. Then, when they realize how easy it is, they move to cars and jewels and banks. This is a mere trifle compared with what's coming your way. And the bitch of it is, your generation won't ever see it coming. You'll just sit there with your video games and your Mac Classics or whatever while the bastards rob the store blind. And you don't even know you own the damn store. It's pitiful. Fucking pathetic. The beginning of the end of a goddamn failed empire. ~ Cheryl Della Pietra

Scientists can test only what they do not take for granted. That can make studying familiar phenomena particularly challenging...This may be especially true of masculinity, femininity and sexuality, because certain ideas abut gender and sexuality are so broadly shared in our culture ~ Rebecca M. Jordan-Young

To be clear, I'm not, like, a drag queen. I'm not trans. I just like how I look with my eyes outlined in dark colors, or sometimes some color on my eyelids or lips. Call me femme if you want, or a queen, but whatever it is, it's just me. And after sitting in a room with a dozen other kids and knowing thousands of other kids are also sitting in rooms, taking the same test, making us all anonymous little filled-in dots on answer sheets, I desperately want to feel like me again. I deserve to. So I buy me, or at least the things that make me feel like me. Capitalism must be so proud of what it's made me into. ~ Lev AC Rosen

I don't want dead paint, so I test many of my works by studying them in a dark room at twilight or even after dark to check the luminosity. If the darker forms still have resonance and luminosity, I know the painting's working. ~ Will Barnet

She nodded anxiously. Kyle sucked on his Popsicle, assessing her eagerness, wondering if he should tell her she was the best sex he's ever had. She would never believe him anyways, so instead, he told her where to improve as she asked. "You can get ahead if you give better head. Got me?"

"Ah, okay. What would you suggest?"

He stared at her mouth as it moved up and down the frozen treat. "Want to practice?"

She gave him a cynical look. "I'm eating my dessert right now."

"Okay, practice on that. See how deep you can go."

She looked at the sweet treat in her hand and back at him. "I'll choke."

"I know CPR. Don't worry. I won't let you. Pretend it's me. I'll be able to direct you better if I'm not the test subject."

She shrugged and inserted the Popsicle in her mouth.

"Wait," he said, knocking it out of her hand.

"Why did you do that?"

He took the discarded Popsicle and ran to the kitchen. He retrieved a new one that wasn't broken in halves. "If you're going to pretend it's me, we should be more realistic," he said, unwrapping it for her. "At least in terms of girth. The length... well, you'll have to use your imagination."

"Um...grape," she replied and licked the edge.

He sat down and rested his chin on his hands to watch her. She licked it a few times and then shocked him by taking a small bite off the top. She gave him an amused smile. Kyle shook ~ M.K. Schiller

He did recall that the summer after graduating from college before he joined the state police he had read Shakespeare. It was the pure language that stupefied him. He would be in a diner reading A Midsummer Night's Dream and his acquaintances were confident he was studying for some test. The test turned out to be the nature of his mind. Shakespeare seemed even truer than history. Literature was against the abyss while history wallowed in it. ~ Jim Harrison

A word now about the bar exam: It's a necessary chore, a rite of passage for any just-hatched lawyer wishing to practice, and though the content and structure of the test itself vary somewhat from state to state, the experience of taking it - a two-day, twelve-hour exam meant to prove your knowledge of everything from contract law to arcane rules about secured transactions - is pretty much universally recognized as hellish. ~ Michelle Obama

It won't be an easy journey - do not expect it to be. But the easy journeys are not worth the leather on the soles of our shoes, boy. It's the journeys that test us to our very core - the journeys that strip the clothes from our back, mess with our minds and shake our spirits - these are the journeys worth taking in life. They show us who we are. ~ Justin Somper

Look through people," I tell her, my voice muffled by the helmet. "Smile without kindness. No small talk, no court talk. Act as if you have a million secrets, and you're the only one important enough to know them all."
She nods, taking this all in stride. After all, Cal and I have both instructed her on how to pass as Maven. This is merely a reminder, a last glance at the book before the test. "I'm not a fool," she replies coldly, and I almost punch her in the jaw. She is not Maven rings in my head, louder than a bell.
"I think you've got it," Kilorn says as he stands. He grabs my arm, pulling me slightly away. "Mare nearly killed you. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Take out a piece of paper and get ready to write. Really do it; it will be fun.

OK.

Now, read the following list of words out loud one time, and then try to write as many of them as you can remember on the paper without looking back. When you think you have them all down on paper, come back to the book.

Go:

door, glass, pane, shade, ledge, sill, house, open, curtain, frame, view, breeze, sash, screen, shutter

Now, take a look at the list. How did you do? Did you write down all the words? Did you write the word "window" down? If this test is presented properly, 85 percent of people taking it will remember seeing "window" in the list, but it isn't there. If you did, you just gave yourself a false memory thanks to the misinformation effect. ~ David McRaney

I'm just going to do my best and live under the assumption that if there are things in this life that we are supposed to do, if there are people in this world we are supposed to love, we'll find them. In time. The future is so incredibly unpredictable that trying to plan for it is like studying for a test you'll never take. I'm OK in this moment. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

Faith isn't grounded on emotions. It's grounded on the will. It's grounded in the act of taking up your cross and following the Lord wherever He leads, through good times and bad, through dark days and happy ones.
We're not tested and tempered in good times, Abby." Ella released her hand and sat back in her chair. "Our true test," she said softly, "lies in the dark night of our despair. ~ Kathleen Morgan

Sometimes when we're being tested by discouragement, it seems God is silent. We pray and we don't hear anything. We read the Scripture and still come away feeling like God is a million miles away. But remember, this is a test. When you're in school, teachers never talk during tests. They stand up at the front of the room very quietly just watching all of the students taking the exam.
The teachers have been preparing you in the days and weeks prior to the test. Often, they've put in extra hours making sure everyone has the opportunity to succeed. On test day, they want to see if you've learned the lessons. They know that you have the information you need. They know you're prepared. You're ready. Now all you've got to do is put into practice what you've learned.
God works the same way as your teachers here on earth. When He is silent, don't assume He has left you. He is right there with you during the test. The silence means only that God has prepared you, and now He is watching to see if you have learned. He would not give you the test unless He knew you were ready.
God is not mad at you when He is silent. He has not forsaken you. His silence is a sign that He has great confidence in you. He knows you have what it takes. He knows you will come through the test victoriously or He would not have permitted you to be tested. ~ Joel Osteen

In terms of driving, I actually don't have a driver's license, and it's kind of ridiculous. I've lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years and just have somehow managed to avoid taking the test, which I did last week and failed. I couldn't find the honker. I felt bad about it, but it's just a little bit embarrassing, I guess, to be in this film and not have a license. ~ Imogen Poots

The noise you hear after people see something you do
whether it's a TV show or a movie
that always makes you see that thing slightly differently. Without question. The ability of a television series to make adjustments is something you've got to take advantage of. And test-screening a movie can be helpful too. But the part that can be dangerous is when you take those notes as gospel, instead of taking them with a grain of salt. The key is to use the response as one of the tools in your box, as opposed to using it to determine what you do. ~ J.J. Abrams

But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work, taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject them for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up - unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out. ~ Mary Norris

Yet Nancy Wexler's obsession with finding the gene was driven by her desire to mend it or cure it when she did find it. And she is undoubtedly closer to that goal now than ten years ago. 'I am an optimist', she writes, 'Even though I feel this hiatus in which we will be able only to predict and not to prevent will be exceedingly difficult .. . I believe the knowledge will be worth the risks.'
What of Nancy Wexler herself? Several times in the late 1980s, she and her elder sister Alice sat down with their father Milton to discuss whether either of the women should take the test. The debates were tense, angry and inconclusive. Milton was against taking the test, stressing its uncertainties and the danger of a false diagnosis. Nancy had been determined that she wanted the test, but her determination gradually evaporated in the face of a real possibility. Alice chronicled the discussions in a diary that later became a soulsearching book called Mapping fate. The result was that neither woman took the test. Nancy is now the same age as her mother was when she was diagnosed. ~ Matt Ridley

Aiming to check a new test's difficulty, ask your assistants to solve the test prior to the actual exam. If the results are not satisfactory, reevaluate all ambiguous questions and correct them. ~ Eraldo Banovac

You have this novel idea of the world, like it's made up of ladder hunting and test taking and framed plaques, all of which mean nothing to your current position. I know enough to know that you are dumb enough to believe in your ability, and that my friend is why you are given the opportunities to rise. ~ J.M. August

I looked for themes and underlying principles across lectures," and "I went over mistakes until I was certain I understood them." They were studying to learn, not just to ace the test. And, actually, this was why they got higher grades - not because they were smarter or had a better background in science. ~ Carol S. Dweck

She blew out a sigh and focused her attention on the students in her class taking a test. There was nothing like a teenage boy cleaning his ears with the eraser of his pencil to squelch sexual desire. ~ Robin Alexander

One of the first things we teach medical students is to listen to the patient by taking a careful medical history. Ninety percent of the time, you can arrive at an uncannily accurate diagnosis by paying close attention, using physical examination and sophisticated lab test to confirm your hunch (and to increase the bill to the insurance company). ~ V.S. Ramachandran

This problem," Rick said, "stems entirely from your method of operation, Mr. Rosen. Nobody forced your organization to evolve the production of humanoid robots to a point where - "
"We produced what the colonists wanted," Eldon Rosen said. "We followed the time-honored principle underlying every commercial venture. If our firm hadn't made these progressively more human types, other firms in the field would have. We knew the risk we were taking when we developed the Nexus-6 brain unit. But your Voigt-Kampff test was a failure before we released that type of android. If you had failed to classify a Nexus-6 android as an android, if you had checked it out as human - but that's not what happened." His voice had become hard and bitingly penetrating. "Your police department - others as well - may have retired, very probably have retired, authentic humans with underdeveloped empathic ability, such as my innocent niece here. Your position, Mr. Deckard, is extremely bad morally. Ours isn't. ~ Philip K. Dick

Instead of taking the camp's difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

My arms broke free from my control. My left hand reached for his face, his hair, to wind my fingers in it.
My right hand was faster, was not mine.
Melanie's fist punched his jaw, knocked his face away from mine with a blunt, low sound. Flesh against flesh, hard and angry.
The force of it was not enough to move him far, but he scrambled away from me the instant our lips were no longer connected, gaping with horrorstruck eyes at my horrorstruck expression.
I stared down at the still-clenched fist, as repulsed as if I'd found a scorpion growing on the end of my arm. A gasp of revulsion choked its way out of my throat. I grabbed the right wrist with my left hand, desperate to keep Melanie from using my body for violence again.
I glanced up at Jared. He was staring at the fist I restrained, too, the horror fading, surprise taking its place. In that second, his expression was entirely defenseless. I could easily read his thoughts as they moved across his unlocked face.
This was not what he had expected. And he's had expectations; that was plain to see. This had been a test. A test he'd thought he was prepared to evaluate. But he'd been surprised.
Did that mean pass or fail?
The pain in my chest was not a surprise. I already knew that a breaking heart was more than an exaggeration.
In a flight-or-fight situation, I never had a choice; it would always be flight for me. Because Jared was between me and the darkness of the tunnel exi ~ Stephenie Meyer

Then why was his tongue in your mouth? Was he conducting a clinical test of your gag reflex?" He smiled, but not nicely. "How is your gag reflex, Ms. Lane? Are you a hair trigger?"
Barrons likes to use sexual innuendo to try to shut me up. I think he expects the well-raised southern belle in me will think eew and back off. Sometimes, I do think eew, but I don't back off. "I'm a spitter, if that's what you're asking." I flashed him a too-sweet smile.
"Didn't look that way to me. I think you're a swallower. His tongue was halfway to China and you were still taking it."
"Jealous? ~ Karen Marie Moning

I am not against standardized tests. There are tests and tests and tests, and, to simplify, the ones I favor are criterion-referenced tests of skills, aligned with the curriculum. Social and emotional skills are important but skills are too. I find it heartbreaking that this is so often seen as an either-or choice. To get to the richness of studying literature, for example, you must first be an adept and confident reader. Whether you are is something a good test can measure. ~ Nicholas Lemann

The whole of creation exists in you, and it is your destiny to become increasingly aware of its infinite wonders and to experience ever greater and grander portions of it. If creation is finished, and all events are taking place now, the question that springs naturally to the mind is "what determines your time track?" That is, what determines the events which you encounter? And the answer is your concept of yourself. Concepts determine the route that attention follows. Here is a good test to prove this fact. Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and observe the route that your attention follows. You will observe that as long as you remain faithful to your assumption, so long will your attention be confronted with images clearly related to that assumption. ~ Neville Goddard

Imagine taking a test knowing the answer. While we know that history flows forward, it is difficult to realize that we envision it backward. Why is it so? We will discuss the point in Chapter 11 but here is a possible explanation: Our minds are not quite designed to understand how the world works, but, rather, to get out of trouble rapidly and have progeny. If they were made for us to understand things, then we would have a machine in it that would run the past history as in a VCR, with a correct chronology, and it would slow us down so much that we would have trouble operating. Psychologists call this overestimation of what one knew at the time of the event due to subsequent information the hindsight bias, the "I knew it all along" effect. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary; and after one's original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in 'religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better; just as in an illness 'feeling better' is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The war-time posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world taking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself. ~ C.S. Lewis

This is life.
Learning to love through loss. Seeking warm pockets in the bitter cold. Finding the worth of a smile on a cloudy day. Carrying the weight of the world on weary shoulders - mistakes, sins, injustices - added upon daily. Enduring burdens that spur greater strength.
This is life.
Sorting through layers of expressions staring you straight in the eye. A battle to be right when wrong, to be good when bad, to be content when in need, and to laugh when tearing up.
This is life.
Valuing things of no worth. Reevaluating dreams. Laboring ceaselessly against the current. Seeing less, wanting more, having enough.
This is life.
Chasing the moon when the sun would extend its warmth. Slapping the hand that would offer a gentle caress. Cowering at personal, monstrous shadows. Giving and taking in unbalanced weights. Diminishing the majesty of mountains in order to form our own lowly hills. Hoping for more than we deserve.
This is life.
Hurting. Despairing. Losing. Weeping. Suffering. Laboring. Sinking. Mourning. Appreciating with greater capacity and sincerity a learned knowledge that these adversities do have their opposites.
This is life.
A taste. A revelation. A banishment. A mercy. A test. An experience. A turbulent sea-voyage that shall assuredly reach the unseen shore, making seasoned sailors of us all.
This is life. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Now it makes sense, for example, if the children are taking a vocabulary test of 100 words, and one of the kids misses thirteen of them, to give him an 87 percent. But we go far beyond this. A student writes an essay on a sunset, let us say, and the teacher writes 87 percent at the top of that paper. What he is saying, in effect, is that there is a mathematical metaphor operative here. The figure of 87 is to 100 what this submitted essay is ... to what? What on earth is this supposed to mean? ~ Douglas Wilson

Curiously enough, though, it was Jeanette who came home one day with a C on a test. Prior to that, B was the lowest grade any of us had gotten, and even a B caused Mommy to shake her head and ask, 'Did anyone in the class get an A? Then you can get an A, too. You just have to study harder.' But this time she looked at the C on Jeanette's paper and said nothing. Wasn't she going to lay into Jeanette? Was Doc so special that she could get away with anything? The rest of us were stunned. I, for one, resolved that if that's the way it was going to be, I was darned if I was going to work so hard at studying from then on.
Then Saturday came. Mommy roused Jeanette at 6:00 A.M., told her to dress in old clothes, and ordered her to the kitchen, where she handed Jeanette a bucket and scrub clothes. 'You and I are going to clean the kitchen from top to bottom,' Mommy announced. 'I'm going to teach you how to do it and do every bit of it right because that's what you're going to be doing for a living when you grow up'.
Jeanette was outraged. 'I'm going to be a doctor'!
'Anybody who gets a C on a test is either too dumb or too lazy to be a doctor. You're going to end up working in somebody's kitchen, so you'd better know how to do it. Now, start by scouring the oven. And I want it spotless'. ~ Yvonne S. Thornton

Trust in the familiar seems to be matched by wariness of the unfamiliar. Jennifer Richeson of Northwestern University has conducted experiments in which white subjects had to interact in some way with a white or a black man before taking a mental test. Those who dealt with the black man got lower scores on the test, and their brain scans showed what Prof. Richeson called "heightened activity in areas of the brain associated with regulating our thoughts and emotions." She interpreted this to mean that white subjects were struggling with the "awkwardness" or "exhaustion" of dealing with a black man, and that this interfered with their ability to take the mental test.
Researchers at Harvard and New York University had white and black subjects look repeatedly at a series of photographs of black and white faces, all with neutral expressions. Every time the subjects looked at one particular black face and one particular white face they got a mild electric shock. Lie detector-type devices showed that subjects would sweat - a typical stress reaction - when they saw the two faces they associated with the shocks. The researchers showed the photo series several times again, but without the shocks. White subjects quickly stopped sweating when they saw the white face formerly associated with the shock, but continued to sweat when they saw the black face. Black subjects had the opposite reaction, continuing to sweat when they saw the white but not the black face. Mahzarin Banaji, the ~ Jared Taylor

This is a very common thing among male groups of friends. There is a person who's always taking heat from everyone else for various reasons. Not that I'm defending this behavior though, fuck no, I hate it when guys are like this; it's barbaric and stupid.

Unfortunately I think it's like an unconscious thing that just comes natural to guys when we're in groups. We take the piss out of each other all the time, prodding until we know the limits of each other and crossing the lines once in a while to test the boundaries.

Some guys who're overly-nice or don't fully understand this dynamic get completely shit on by it. If you keep excusing small actions by others that violate your boundaries, they'll just keep pushing and pushing, giving less and less respect until they know how far they're allowed to go. Having people knowing your limits and making sure to not cross them equates to respect, which is what we're after.

This doesn't mean you should to tell them all to fuck off now; that wouldn't work anymore because you've allowed them this far into your territory. It'd seem like an overreaction from you, which makes sense, right?

"We were just joking around yesterday about the same things, he seemed cool with it, but now he's all pissed for some reason, this guys a whack..."

The key thing to note if you want to avoid this in the future is to either find "nicer" friends, or to let people know when they cross a boundary. This may ~ Anonymous