Surrounded by Irrationality

My students took a standardized test by the English department two weeks ago. I gave them the results today. They hate writing, and the results showed: lots of D’s and F’s; one person got a B, no A's. As soon as they saw their results, they whined and ranted, claiming that the system was not fair, etc, etc… Then the big question:

Apathetic Student #1: “Why do we have to take these tests?”

Me, the English teacher: “Four words: high school exit examination. The exam has a huge section on writing, and if you can’t pass this practice test, you won’t pass the exit exam. If you don’t pass the exit exam, you don’t graduate. When you don’t graduate, you take summer school, or you repeat tenth grade English in your junior year.”

Apathetic Student #2: “That’s not fair. Why don’t they just let us graduate?”

I gave Apathetic Student #2 my infamous “rolling eye.” Two things came to mind: a) this generation of teens are used to having their own way. Graduate with failing classes? Has anyone even heard of such a thing? Is that what these kids think? That even if they fail, they think they can just graduate? And b) Did anyone see the irrationality of his question? That’s like asking, “Do I need to be connected to the Internet when I check my email?” These kids are simply void of any kind of logic.