I spent the morning scoring the stupid standardised creativity test - rolling on the floor with laughter. Last year the scores were dismal, but this year, due to the magic of me giving the tests, the scores relate to the child's creativity. They have a nerve - on the one hand you'd be in trouble if you took a Rorschach blot test and came up with all kinds of off-beat things, then they score you badly on this test if you DON'T come up with weird things. How is a child to know what's wanted? How many WASL answers are humorous? What would happen if you took all the math problems on one page and added then up? On THIS test it would be ok. If you don't prepare children they fall into three categories: Not creative, Creative but tries to please you, Creative but doesn't try to please you. The first two types score badly and the third says, "I'm not doing this," and leaves. It takes me saying, "This is stupid but you have to do it. Be whacky. Just don't be boring," before they understand - then the first 10 exercises are tentative. They say, "Can I do..." And I say, "Do whatever you want." These days the children do standardised tests all the time. They are trained to follow orders and not deviate from the norm. Great - just bloody great.