Option-Generating Test
Situations:
1. Someone your age or a little older teaches small classes of music lessons for younger kids in the neighborhood. There is one boy in the class who messes around, doesn’t pay attention to the instructor, distracts other kids from what they are trying to do, and makes it harder and less pleasant to teach the class.
2. There’s a kid at school that everybody seems to pick on and say mean things to, and not want to play with. This kid is not mean, but just sort of different. Someone in the class feels compassion for this kid and wants to make him happier. What are the options for the kid who feels compassion?
3. Someone gets a report card for the first reporting period, to find a really bad grade in a certain subject. What are the person’s options?
4. Someone wants to or has to give a speech. But the person feels terrified about speaking in front of people.
5. There is someone at school who fairly often makes hostile or critical statements toward a second kid, like “That was a stupid thing to say,” or “No one cares what you think.” What options can you think of, for what the second kid could do?
6. Pat and Lee live together. Pat’s favorite food is a dish that produces a very strong smell while it is being cooked. Lee thinks the smell is horrible. List options that the two of them could possibly agree on to solve the problem.
7. Someone your age is trying to decide on what goals to focus on for the coming year or school year. What options can you list for goals that the person might want to consider setting?
8. Two people want to see a movie together. But they prefer two different movies, and each person thinks that he or she would really dislike the movie that the other prefers.
9. Two people really like to get together to study and work on homework. But they find that they are starting to talk with each other so much that they don’t get enough work done.
10. Someone goes to college. The person starts to feel homesick.
11. Someone tries to get work done on his or her computer, for example writing a paper. But the person keeps getting distracted by things on the Internet and also by text messages that come in.
12. A child’s family doesn’t have much money. What can the child do to help the family’s finances in an honest and legal way?
13. Someone loses and misplaces things a lot. What options can the person try, to not waste so much time looking for or replacing things?
14. Someone has a friend. All of a sudden the friend talks to other people but says little or nothing when the person speaks to the friend. The friend seems to be avoiding the person, and being with other people instead.
15. Someone is set to take a test. The rule is that you have to stay in the test room until the time for the test is over, even if you have finished the test, and you can’t read or draw or use a cell phone or play video games or do anything else that requires bringing something in with you. The person usually finishes the test way before the time is up. What could the person do to keep from being too bored during the time?
Options on our list:
1. Someone your age or a little older teaches small classes of music lessons for younger kids in the neighborhood. There is one boy in the class who messes around, doesn’t pay attention to the instructor, distracts other kids from what they are trying to do, and makes it harder and less pleasant to teach the class.
1. Tell the boy and his parents that he can’t be in the class any more.
2. Propose to the boy’s parents that they stay available during class, so that the boy can be taken out of class and taken home as soon as he starts to act up.
3. Meet alone with the boy and find out wether he even wants to learn what you are teaching. If he doesn’t, suggest to him and his parents that he stop the class.
4. If the boy wants to stay in the class, explain to him exactly what he will ahve to do in order to stay in.
5. Meet with the parent and tell them the boy will have to change or else he won’t be able to come to the class any more.
6. Suggest to the parents that the boy have individual lessons rather than go to the class.
7. If there’s some other child in the class that stimulates this child to act up, switch the child to a different class.
8. If you haven’t tried reprimanding or correcting the child when he does do something disruptive, you could try this.
9. You could plan with the child and his parents that the child will sit out of class and do nothing for a few minutes every time he does something disruptive.
10. You could spend some time individually with the child getting to know him better and trying to find out why he acts the way he does.
11. If the other kids in the class are laughing at him or giving him lots of attention when he acts up, you could ask them not to reinforce him.
12. You could suggest that the other kids try to help himact right.
13. Ifyou think the child is too restless and needs to move more, you could try having him run before class, or get his parents to have him run, to get some of his energy out.
14. You could ask the child to observe some of the children who are cooperating, and to describe to you what they are doing, so that he can get a model in his head about how to act better.
15. You could have the child come to the class for a short time, and gradually get longer as he is able to act right for a longer and longer time.
16. Give a reward contingent on his acting right.
17. Arrange with the parents to have a reasonable mild punishment, other than time out, contingent on his acting undesirably.
18. Talk to the parents just to communicate the problem to them.
2. There’s a kid at school that everybody seems to pick on and say mean things to, and not want to play with. This kid is not mean, but just sort of different. Someone in the class feels compassion for this kid and wants to make him happier. What are the options for the kid who feels compassion?
1. He can always be sure to be nice and friendly to him at school.
2. He can play with him some when they are on the playground.
3. He can invite hm to his house or other places outside school, and play with him and be nice to him.
4. He can talk to his other classmates and see if he can persuade them to be nice to this kid.
5. He can take up for this kid when other kids put him down or laugh at him.
6. Sometime when he’s alone with this kid he can tell him why the other kids make fun of him and how he can make them like him more.
7. He can teach him to play interesting games and tell him good riddles and jokes and teach him magic tricks, etc., that will help him get friends interested in him.
8. He can work on making more friends himself, whom he can influence to be nice to this other kid.
9. He can talk with the teacher about how the kid is treated and try to get the teacher to take up for him.
10. He can talk with the guidance counselor or principal or social worker or other school staff member, and try to get any of these to act on the kid’s behalf.
11. He could sit with him at lunch.
12. He could do activities with him or include him in activities at school.
3. Someone gets a report card for the first reporting period, to find a really bad grade in a certain subject. What are the person’s options?
1. The person could just put in a lot more time working in that course.
2. The person could try to concentrate much harder while working at the course.
3. If the person got the bad grade because of not turning work in, the person could try to get lots more organized about writing down assignments, checking them off when done, and turning them in.
4. If the person finds some of the work in the course over his head, he could study a lot of the prerequisite material, using an easier textbook for example.
5. The person could get other sources of information that might explain things better than his textbook, and study those very carefully.
6. The person cold talk to the teacher about redoing some of the work that was done before.
7. The person could get some extra help from the teacher or guidance from the teacher about what to do.
8. The person could get some extra help from a parent.
9. The person could get some extra help from a classmate or another student who had studied the course before.
10. The person could get help from a tutor.
11. If the course grade relies on tests, the person could make up or get practice tests.
12. If the course grad relies on writing, the person could study the art of writing very carefully, usin a book on writing.
13. If the course grade relies on writing, the person could get help from someone who is good at writing, to learn to write better.
14. The student could make sure to start preparing very early for anything he will get graded on.
15. If the course is really over the student’s head, or if the student has taken on too much, the student could drop out of the course.
16. The person could ask the teacher if he could do extra credit work to bring the grade up.
17. If the person thinks the teacher made a mistake, he could talk with the teacher about it.
18. He could talk with a parent about the problem.
19. He could consult a professional other than a tutor.
20. He could set up a routine time to study.
21. He could make other activities contingent on finishing his work.
4. Someone wants to give a speech. But the person feels terrified about speaking in front of people.
1. You could write out every word of the speech, and read it so that you don’t have to worry about forgetting what you’re going to say.
2. You could work a lot on revising it so that it sounds good.
3. You could get someone to help you revise the speech after you’ve written it, so that you can make sure it sounds good.
4. You could practice giving the speech many times, so that you are able to do it really well.
5. You could get someone to coach you on how to deliver the speech well, in order to feel more confident and competent at it.
6. You could practice giving the speech while imagining yourself delivering it to the group, so that you get used to it.
7. You could practice relaxing your muscles and using other ways of relaxing, to calm yourself down.
8. You could practice “not awfulizing” thoughts, reminding yourself that you want to do well but nothing terrible will happen if you don’t.
9. You could practice giving the speech in front of friends or family members, to get used to doing it in front of people.
10. You could just go ahead and give the speech despite feeling the fear, and feel good about having done so.
11. If you have too much else to do, and the goal of the speech isn’t important compared to other things, you could not give the speech.
12. You could plan to give the speech late on, when you have had more time to work on getting used to public speaking.
13. You could use an imagery technique while giving the speech, so as to make the experience less scary.
14. You could get help from someone else on how to reduce your fear – e.g. a psychologist.
15. You could use a reinforcement technique such as giving yourself a reward ffor doing it, or congratulating yourself internally.
16. You could videotape yourself doing it and show that instead.
5. There is someone at school who fairly often makes hostile or critical statements toward a second kid, like “That was a stupid thing to say,” or “No one cares what you think.” What options can you think of, for what the second kid could do?
1. You could just ignore the person and not worry about what he says.
2. You cold just shrug your shoulders when he says those things, and say, “You can think whatever you want.”
3. You could say critical things back to him, only when he has said one of his insults. Or you could say, “How about minding your own business,” or “Who asked you,” or something else confrontive like that.
4. You could ask the teacher to listen to what he says, just to be aware of what is going on.
5. You could try letting the person know that you don’t appreciate this and you want him to stop, without being hostile.
6. You could let the person know that if he does not stop, you will ask the school faculty and administration to make him stop.
7. You could ask the teacher to make the kid stop.
8. You could ask the principal, counselor, or other school staff for help.
9. You could work on making friends with the other kids in the class, so that you would have a group of allies who wold just make you feel better, even if this kid didn’t stop.
10. You could work on making friends with other kids in the class, in the hopes that they would take your side and put pressure on the kid to quit.
11. You could ask the teacher to physically separate the kid from you in the classroom.
12. You could discuss with the teacher the idea of keeping track of how often he says these things, in preparation for doing something about it later on.
13. You could make a hidden recording of what he says so that when he denies saying anything, you could play it.
14. You could discuss this problem with parents, just to get their ideas.
15. If your school doesn’t have a policy or some procedures that people are supposed to go through in this situation, you could work on starting up such a policy, so that you could also help all other people who have the same problem.
16. You could ask your parents to do something on your behalf.
17. Your parents could talk with the people at school.
18. There could be a conference with you, the other kid, the other kid’s parents, and your parents, and the teacher and principal, at school.
19. You could talk with your friends about the problem.
20. You could get the friends you already have to support you.
6. Pat and Lee live together. Pat’s favorite food is a dish that gives off a strong smell while it is being cooked. Lee thinks the smell is horrible. List options that the two of them could possibly agree on to solve the problem.
1. Pat could cook the dish on an outdoor grill.
2. Pat could get a big fan that would pull the smelly air out of the house.
3. Pat could coo the dish only when Lee is going to be out of the house for long enough that the smell has time to go away by the time Lee gets back.
4. Pat could try to find a neighbor that really likes it, and go over to that person’t house to cook it and eat it together.
5. Pat could find a restaurant that makes the dish, and go out and order it there.
6. Pat could go ahead and cook it and Lee could put up with it, and in return Pat could do something nice for Lee.
7. Pat could not cook it any more – Pat gives in.
8. Pat could try putting it in an air-tight container and cooking it in a microwave oven, and see if that works in making it smell less strongly.
9. Pat could cook up a whole bunch of it and freeze it in little packets, and then heat up each frozen packen in an air-tight container in a microwave.
10. Lee could try to gradually get used to the smell – Lee gives in.
11. Lee could go to a different part of the house, if the house is big enough.
12. One of them gives in, in return for the other one doing somethings nice or giving in on something else.
13. Pat could change the ingredients slightly.
14. Pat could continue to cook it, but less frequently.
7. Someone your age is trying to decide on what goals to focus on for the coming year or school year. What options can you list for goals that the person might want to consider setting?
1. Becoming better at any psychological skill or positive character trait: i.e. becoming more productive, joyous, kind, honest, etc.
2. Improve a relationship with a family member, or foster a positive relationship
3. Make more friends
4. Have a closer relationship with the friends you do have.
5. Do more interesting or creative things with friends.
6. Get better at a sport.
7. Get more exercise
8. Improve eating habits
9. Improve other health habits
10. Learn a musical instrument or singing
11. Learn to use computers better
12. Enlarging or improving your philosophy of life or religious life
13. Do useful work for the family (chores, etc.)
14. Do useful work outside the family
15. Earn money
16. Become stronger in a certain subject
17. Become better organized in schoolwork
18. Get good or top grades (nonspecified end in mind)
19. Win a distinction at school: (honor roll, award, etc.)
20. Study more efficiently or effectively
21. Learn about some subject because of curiosity or love of the subject or some reason other than its being for school
22. Have good conduct at school
23. Have good conduct at home
24. Have a good reputation for behavior
25. Do a project that is of service to humanity or the community
26. Learn more about how to be of service to humanity
27. Work for nonviolence
28. Work to reduce ignorance (e.g. tutoring, teaching)
29. Work to improve the environment
30. Do more fun things
31. Get over being afraid of something
32. Learn to control your emotions better
33. Have better school attendance
34. Read more
35. Have or promote better relations with classmates
8. Two people want to see a movie together. But they prefer two different movies, and each person thinks that he or she would really dislike the movie that the other prefers.
1. Each could go to the movie he or she prefers, and they could meet up afterwards.
2. The first person or the second person could just go ahead and see the movie that the other prefers.
3. They could get some other friends to go along, and have two groups who are seeing the two movies, and all get together afterwards.
4. They could look for a third movie in a theater that they might both enjoy.
5. They could look for a movie they would both enjoy among recordings, downloadings, etc.
6. They could see if there’s something they would both enjoy on TV.
7. They could do something together other than see a movie. (Each of these is a separate option.) For example:
8. They could just hang out and talk.
9. They could go for a walk.
10. They could play or sing music together.
11. They could shoot basketball together.
12. They could go out for supper.
13. They could cook supper together.
14. They could play computer or video games.
15. They could go out dancing.
16. They could get some work done together.
17. They could not spend time with each other that evening, and each could decide separately what to do.
18. Each of them could find someone else to go with them to the movie they prefer.
9. Two people really like to get together to study and work on homework. But they find that they are starting to talk with each other so much that they don’t get enough work done.
1. They could set a schedule, where they are totally quiet until a certain time, then they get to talk for a certain length of time, and then they are silent again, and so forth.
2. They could have the same schedule, but during the times they are silent, they could go into separate rooms so they won’t be tempted to talk.
3. They could just have fun talking and being with each other, and then each of them could go to their own home or own room and study alone.
4. They could set a goal of a certain amount of work to finish, and reward themselves by getting to socialize only after they have both finished their goal.
5. They could just plan on spending longer on their work, but enjoying it more.
6. They could make a rule that they could talk, but only about the work that they were doing, so that their conversation would help their learning.
7. They could study together when there isn’t a whole lot of pressure, but study alone when there is a lot of pressure.
8. They could just stop studying together for a while and try again later on.
9. They could give up on the idea of studying together.
10. They could each find a very quiet and shy person to study with.
10. Someone goes to college. The person starts to feel homesick.
The person could:
1. put more energy into getting to know other students and make better friends.
2. put more energy into getting to know the teachers, and form relationships with them.
3. find a particular teacher, or a particular student, who is supportive and kind and nurturing.
4. work really hard at achieving goals.
5. stay very busy.
6. go home on week ends.
7. chat with the folks a home often by phone.
8. stay in touch with the folks at home by video conferencing, e.g. Skype.
9. stay in touch with the home folks by email.
10. transfer to a college where the person can live at home and commute to school.
11. just gut it out and bear the homesickness.
12. focus on being nice to other people.
13, focus on achieving good things.
11. Someone tries to get work done on his or her computer, for example writing a paper. But the person keeps getting distracted by things on the Internet and also by text messages that come in.
1. turn off the network connection on the computer.
2. If the person is connected to the Internet by a cable, the person could pull out the cable.
3. use an old computer that doesn’t even have a connection to the Internet
4. buy an old computer that doesn’t have an internet connection if the person doesn’t have one.
5. Make a schedule that the person will work for a certain length of time, and then the reward will be to go onto the Internet or get text messages for a certain time, and then the person works again, and so forth.
6. If the person is having trouble following his or her own rules, the person might communicate them to someone else and let the other person check on how well the person did in following them.
7. The person can turn the cell phone off.
8. The person can put the cell phone in a different room from the one he or she is working in.
9. The person can tell the people who send text or computer messages that the person is signing off for a while to get work done.
10. The person can keep having the connections, but just try to ignore the distractions while working.
11. The person can just keep going as things are going now if the distraction is not having too bad effects.
12. A child’s family doesn’t have much money. What can the child do to help the family’s finances in an honest and legal way?
1. Get jobs that will bring in some money.
a. babysitting
b. pet care
c. lawn care, grasscutting
d. if old enough, work in a store or business
e. deliver newspapers
2. If the person is playing a sport or taking lessons that are expensive, the person could stop doing that.
3. If the person is of an age where a babysitter or child care person may or may not be necessary, the person can become responsible and mature enough that the family doesn’t have to spend money on child care.
4. The person could buy clothes at a thrift shop rather than at a new clothing store.
5. Stop spending money on junk food.
6. Not ask to go out to restaurants, and encourage the rest of the family not to do so, but to get food at grocery stores.
7. Spend some time finding coupons that will save money on the things the family has to get.
8. Encourage the family to go camping or stay at home during vacations rather than ask to be taken to expensive hotels.
9. Sell things that he or she is no longer using, for example on Ebay.
10. Sell things for other family members, for example on Ebay.
11. The person could stop doing sports so as to have more time for working at a job.
12. If the child ever does anything that leads the parent to miss work, the child can stop doing that.
13. The child can encourage the family to rent out a room to someone else, and maybe share a room with other family members.
14. The child can turn off electrical things when no one is using them to save money on electricity.
15. The child can work very hard on schoolwork to try to get a scholarship to college some day, and save the family a lot of money on that.
16. The child can start studying test prep books so as to help get a scholarship to college and save money on that.
17. The child can look into what jobs pay well, and can study and train to do one of those jobs as soon as possible.
18. The child can learn to do computer programming or web design etc. and do free lance work for people in that way.
19. The child can walk or run or bike places rather than need to be driven, so that maybe the family can get rid of a car or at least save on gas.
20. If the child has a lot of talent as a performer or actor or writer or so forth, the child could try making some money in that way.
21. The child could help a parent to do the parent’s work, so that the parent will get more work done and make more money for the family.
22. The child can learn to work by himself or herself on schoolwork without being supervised by a parent, so that the parent can work in ways that bring in money.
23. The child can grow some vegetables on some ground or in pots for the family to eat for free.
13. Someone loses and misplaces things a lot. What options can the person try, to not waste so much time looking for or replacing things?
1. Figure out a “home” for each thing, a place that it is to be put when it isn’t being used.
2. Spend a certain amount of time each day putting things in their homes.
3. Move things that aren’t being used, that create clutter that other things can get lost in, to some place where they can be stored.
4. Get rid of unnecessary things by giving them away.
5. Get rid of unnecessary things by selling them.
6. Get rid of unnecessary things by throwing them away.
7. Stopping getting more things that clutter up the living space.
8. Get containers that things can be put in, such as file drawers, file folders, book cases, boxes, and use them to put things away.
9. Have a rule that certain things are never put anywhere except in certain places. For example, the keys are either being used or in a pocket or in a certain little box.
10. If the person uses a backpack, have a certain fixed place in it for every thing that gets carried in it.
11. If the person has a backpack, empty it out regularly and put away or dispose of the things that aren’t being used.
12. Get out of the habit of putting things down on tables or chairs or other surfaces.
13. Don’t allow things to lie all over the floor.
14. Imagine that you have a friend. All of a sudden the friend talks to other people but says little or nothing when you speak to him or her. The friend seems to be avoiding you, and being with other people instead.
1. You could say to the friend, in person, “You seem to be avoiding me and not wanting to be friendly to me any more. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
You could ask the friend the same thing by
2 text message or email
3 a phone call
4 a written note
5. You could just continue to be friendly and nice to the person, and see if things change on their own.
6. You could turn your attention to other people your age and try to make new and better friendships with other people.
7. You could focus your attention on getting your work done really well, and worry as little as possible about what people think of you.
8. You could cultivate good relationships with family members, so that it makes less difference to you what your friends are doing.
9. You could focus some of your attention on activities you like to do alone, such as reading, so that you know you can have a good time without needing someone else’s consent.
10. If you know other people who are close to your friend, you could discuss this with them and ask them what is going on.
15. Someone is set to take a test. The rule is that you have to stay in the test room until the time for the test is over, even if you have finished the test, and you can’t read or draw or use a cell phone or play video games or do anything else that requires bringing something in with you. The person usually finishes the test way before the time is up. What could the person do to keep from being too bored during the time?
1. He could make up a very elaborate story during the time, and when he gets out he could write it down.
2. He could check very carefully his answers on the test.
3. If you are allowed to use a calculator on the test, he could explore the different things his calculator can do.
4. He could think about decisions that are facing him, and work on deciding the best thing to do.
5. He could put his head down on his desk and go to sleep.
6. He could practice relaxing or meditating. There are several specific ways, any of which would count as a separate option; for example:
7.He could practice relaxing his muscles
8. He could observe his own thoughts.
9. He could use a “mantra.”
10. He could do the “psychological skills meditation.”
11. He could do the “good will meditation.”
12. He could compose in his mind a letter to someone, and write it when he gets out.
13. He could try to figure out how to solve one of the world’s problems.
14. He could study the test and learn as much as he can about how tests like this are made and what they ask about.
15. He could tense and relax his muscles so that he can get a good amount of exercise while just sitting there.
16. He could try to make up a song.
17. He could try to remember good things that he has done in his life, and feel good about them.
18. He could practice any other psychological skills exercises in his mind. Each of them is a separate option.
19. If he is learning something like a musical instrument or a sport he could rehearse important moves in his fantasy.
20. He could mentally review schoolwork that he has coming up.
1. Someone has been depressed a lot. The person considers applying to get payments of money that go to disabled people, saying that the depression is a disability.
2. Someone considers going to a much less expensive college to save money when they have gotten into a college that is famous for being good, that is very expensive
3. Someone is a little overweight and thinks about losing as much weight as possible, to become very very skinny.
4. Someone considers trying out for a school football team.
5. Someone has been picked on by someone at school, and he considers taking the person’s papers and tearing them up.
6. Someone considers becoming a teacher of elementary school students.
7. Someone considers watching a video of dance steps and practicing doing them every day in order to get a good workout.
8. Someone considers becoming vegetarian.
9. Someone considers making a rule for him or herself not to drink any sodas at all.
10. Someone is starting high school. The person considers signing up for as many courses and as hard courses as it is possible to take.
11. Someone considers getting a dog as a pet.
12. Someone considers starting a custom of workout out with weights and doing fast movements for 10 minutes the first thing each morning.
13. Someone has a problem with anxiety. The person considers studying a certain book on anxiety very thoroughly.
14. Someone in high school goes over to someone's house and the person invites them to smoke marijuana with them. The person considers trying it.
15. Someone is taunted and teased in a very mean way by someone else at school. The person considers punching the other person in the face, really hard.
16. Someone in middle school is offered a ride in a car by a friend who doesn't have a driver's license yet. What are the pros and cons of riding with the friend?
Scoring: Count the number of reasonable, rational advantages or disadvantages for each option. A more detailed scoring guide will be developed.