Movies do a lot of things to us. They make us laugh, cry and allow us to escape. Ironically enough, with finals week coming up, it usually makes us want to do a lot of those same things. Laugh at how we’re expected to get all of the work done, cry because we don’t feel like we can and escape, because, at that point you’re just ready to go. With that said, one thing we don’t normally look to movies for, are answers. A main reason: our lives aren’t scripted — and we actually have to deal with the consequences. Well we’ve taken five movies dealing with school and tests, and given you what their solutions would be to get you through hell week. Note: We don’t suggest doing any of them.


1. The Perfect Score Way: Steal the answers.

In this flick, six high school students strike up a plan to steal the answers to the SAT in order to make sure they get, you guessed it, the perfect score. Coming from all different cliques, their motives for needing the answers to do well are all over the board, but come together for a covert mission to ensure their dreams come true. Which in real life would be a dream of a court date. While it does show the pressure a lot of students feel about testing — I’m not sure how many of us would be willing to break the law for it.

2.The Harry Potter Way: Use magic.

When it came to test-taking, Harry and the gang had some serious luck, although magic wands probably helped. When it was time for them to begin studying for their O.W.L’s and N.E.W.T.’s examinations, they were given time to study and hello! They had charms and incantations. But even before those exams, they had already had some pretty good luck with previous tests.  In the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets due to the crazy life that is the wizard world, final exams were cancelled. So basically if you’re feeling stressed here’s the solution: transfer to Hogwarts.

3. The Legally Blonde Way: Waste your time partying, then do big things.

Spend your days lounging by the pool or attending the latest kegger, and then wake up and ace your tests. What, like it’s hard? Elle Woods showed that with some serious cramming can come truly great things in so little time. You can get accepted to Harvard Law, rock a bunny costume and find the love of your life, why wouldn’t you want to study? It’s got to give you a little hope that someone with absolutely no qualifications (besides talking Cameron Diaz out of this truly heinous angora sweater at Fred Segal) can become a hot-shot lawyer. Whoever said this movie couldn’t teach you anything was seriously disturbed.

4. The Mean Girls Way: Dumb yourself down.

You could approach your tests like Cady Heron. You could be a smarty pants and know all your information and then just let it go out the window for the cute boy in front of you, because that’s clearly what’s important. Maybe you’ll even be lucky enough to get him to tutor you, even though you’re actually really good at math, and he’s actually really bad at math. Then after slacking to the point of which you’re failing, you’ll somehow manage to get your grades back up just before the semester ends because life really does work out like that. Sounds grool to me.

5. The Accepted Way: Create your own school. This clearly would be the perfect solution, right? You wouldn’t have to pull all-nighters and do well, try and fill up resumés, or send in applications because you’d be going to the college of your choice, AKA the college you created. Bartleby Gaines didn’t get accepted to any of the schools he applied to, so he just made one up. By creating the South Harman Institute of Technology, he gave himself and kids everywhere a chance to go to fake college and design their own classes because at the end of the day, who needs a curriculum?
What actually works for you during finals week? What are some lessons you actually learned from some movies?