my friend's a HERO! she caught an exam error and kept several others from flunking!

[Lisa]

I've just got to brag about Laura, this awesome woman I know. She and a bunch of other people took a professional exam in natural resource management. It's one of those things where you only get a couple of chances to pass -- she and some of her classmates wouldn't have been allowed another chance next year, if they didn't get it this time.

Anyway, she received word last week that she had failed. I have to admit that if it had been me, I probably would have crawled away and been too demoralized to question anything. But Laura looked at the results very carefully, and figured out that THEY HAD MADE AN ADDITION ERROR. And it wasn't just her paper -- when the authorities finally decided to look into this, they discovered that several other people were in the same situation. The mistake likely wouldn't have been uncovered if she hadn't checked. (She is certainly not prone to pitching fits, or complaining over little things -- but she just had a hunch that something was wrong, and she is persistent enough to hang in there.)

I'm a teacher, and I know that it's possible for questions or entire assignments to get overlooked by accident -- I double-check my addition, but there's always that chance, you know? We are coming up on exam season right now, so I am posting this by way of encouraging everyone who's writing or marking exams, to just do a quick look-over. It doesn't take that long, and it could save a whole lot of trouble later.

For now -- my friend is SO relieved. This professional accreditation means that she may finally be able to come back home and get a job that she really likes. (And start a family with her boyfriend!) This exam result could literally change her life -- and she totally deserves it, because if she hadn't taken the initiative on this thing, it wouldn't have happened.