The Charge

Boost your test scores with Marko the Pencil!

The Case

I never needed test-taking strategies when I was but a wee lad growing up the hinterlands of North Carolina. This may have something to do with the fact that I'm a genius. Even at the young age of seven, I was able to trounce standardized tests with an almost spooky ease. In fact, while I don't often like to brag about such things, I have multiple awards proving my excellence.

However, I know that there are some people who are not so blessed as I. But, for them, there is Rock 'N Learn's Reading Test-Taking Strategies with Marko the talking pencil to show them the way.

For a good portion of the time, I was trying to figure out what ethnicity Marko was. He had a very slight accent, one which suggested a Romance language. He had obviously spent many years in America and thus had lost most of his accent while assimilating. But then at one point he let out a rousing "badda-bing!" and I knew that Marko was celebrating a strong Italian heritage. Then he started singing "That's Amore" with his own special spin on the lyrics and I began to pray for death.

As you might imagine from a children's video of this sort, Marko, being a pencil, used approximately 50,000 pencil puns during the course of the 46 minutes.

Annoyingly enough, that cheeky bow-tied pencil has some good ideas and offers them in a relatively pain-free manner. Pain free to a child in elementary school, I mean. Rather than having a bitter cantankerous old woman named Ms. K, with no imagination or joy in her life and a love of stifling young minds in her oppressive classroom, teach them how to take a test, they get a talking pencil.

Marko also tells "jokes" after he's done teaching. Parents who have thus far been monitoring Marko's testing advice might want to flee briskly at this point.

So there it is. Good test-taking strategies delivered in a way kids might possibly enjoy. Badda-bing.

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