and their only thinkable option to survive as a king of dungheap is trying to please all. Nicholas Dollak I understand that. However, it's a foolish excuse for banning words (something that shouldn't be done anyway). On top of this, since these are standardized tests they should reflect what presumably has been taught as part of the curriculum -- if there's any "controversy," it's because a student goofed off instead of paying attention, and probably never learned comprehension skills (i.e. context clues) either. Banning words 1. dumbs things down, which in the end does nobody any favors; 2. forces people who have heavy responsibilities to walk on eggshells; and 3. -- worst of all, since this was made public and you can bet the students are laughing over this list of new "bad" words -- students will be feigning offense any time a word on the list pops up anywhere (not just on tests), and they'll be accusing teachers they don't like of saying such words. Most administrators find it easier to fire a teacher over groundless complaints than to address the real issue. Daniel Bezden Hey, maybe if we ban the word "Stupid" we wont have it any more? Michael For reasons no one seems able to explain, education is the only profession where people with little or no experience in the field are put in charge. Sorry, that seems to be happening in our health care system too. Einstein said it best: The only things that are infinite