Pass/Fail By Linda Pastan Summary

The poem “Pass/Fail” by Linda Pastan addresses exam anxiety. In the poem the author talks about examination dreams. These dreams are a reflection on the individual’s lack of confidence and incapability to advance to the next stage in life. In the dreams no matter what a person do, the answer is always wrong and he or she is guaranteed to fail in the dream. In real life, one either pass an exam or fail it. If one fails, they can often retake the exam and pass it. However, no matter what a person do, they are never going to escape from their examination dreams. These dreams will continue throughout their life. The tests life set us can often be passed but, the tests we imagine can be too hard for us to succeed with. The poem starts out by saying that we will never complete and achieve our dreams in life. For example, “You will never graduate from this dream of blue books” (Pastan, 1-3).The author also says, “No matter how succeed awake, asleep there is a test waiting to be filled” (Pastan, 4-7). This indicates that, it does not matter if a person is successful in waking life because when they are asleep their doubts are waiting to trouble them. In other words, an individual can succeed while awake but they might fail while asleep.
People always learn something new every day. In the poem the cool side of the pillow indicates life as an open road, a blank journey that must be learn by yourself. The real world teaches people much more than they learn in book. Even once someone reaches success they are still learning and still have a lot more to learn. “You will still smother in all of the feathers that have to be learned by heart” (Pastan 21-24). Through this line, the author reminds us that real difficulties can often be overcome, it is mainly imaginary difficulties which are hard to deal with. One should continue to attempt and learn because learning never stops. Thus, we need to learn which is which and focus on the problems that