Peanut Butter Question - Flash Fiction
Updated: 3 days ago
A humorous flash fiction story about the strange things that end up on a test. In “Peanut Butter Question,” Greg Luti follows an SAT instructor who has to walk a student through a passage claiming that smooth or crunchy peanut butter can determine romantic compatibility.
I teach the SAT, and during it, the students are given questions that seem so unusual, that I have to take a second to comprehend what it is I am saying to this kid, as I am trying to teach a lesson for a question, something like how to find the meaning to the blank space in the passage (the trick is to always find a phrase or so that helps you understand the blank space)
Sometimes the topics are just odd.
One had the fact that people determine romantic interest based on their preference to peanut butter. I swear to God, I am not making this up. There is a study that suggests that people will break up with others because they don’t go with peanut butter, I suppose.
And this whole time, we all thought we were having a nice light meal for lunch when making those sandwiches. It turns out we are forming unknown future romantic interests, that will come to define our lives one day. All because of peanut butter.
Oh, and there may be an SAT question on it in the future too.
Once you get to know the question types, and how to teach them, you start to say the same thing without really thinking. I am teaching the kids the steps, so I repeat them to every kid that I teach.
This question of peanut butter was a study based question, which means the passage is informing the reader of a study. The student had to go back and find what the question is even asking. (sometimes they ask for different things)
I told her to see that the question is asking for a example to the finding, so we then have to go back to the peanut butter passage, which is a written up paragraph or so, of no more than a few hundred words. I explain there is a line, normally at the end that literally says the words, “The findings say,” That is what we are looking for, because in that part of the passage, we are then being told what the findings found.
It was then I saw the odd connection between peanut butter and romance. I took a look at the line with the details of the findings, and sure enough it was that, people determine their romantic relationships based on peanut butter.
I stopped my usual teaching and spoke to the kid out of tune. “Can we just take a second to recognize that the test that will determine your future, and is possibly one of the most important tests you will take in your entire life, has you read a passage where peanut butter is connected to love somehow? I like to think that you are going to talk to your parents tonight and when they ask you what you learned, you will say, ‘Well, I learned that love is affected by peanut butter.’ I continued, “You are here for two hours and remember something silly like that.”
She spoke up, as a way to confirm she was paying attention more than anything, “It is kind of strange, I guess.”
I shook my head at the absurdity of the situation. “Don’t look at me with this. I only teach the SAT. I don’t write up the questions for it.”
I then got back into the regular routine of teaching the proper steps to answer the questions based on the question type. She has to find the example that matches with what the findings even say. I didn’t focus too much on the nonsense in the study, as I did want the kid to learn something while there.
We moved on to the next question, and didn’t mention the peanut butter passage again.
The real kicker is I am not sure that the kid really views the situation as absurd as I do. They will go about their day never once questioning that it is odd on such an important test, they are being asked irrelevant, pointless information.
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