The Meyers- Briggs psychological ÒtypeÓ tests equate to the daily horoscopes printed in a newspaper: Some formulaic system developed by experts in the field Ð either psychology or astrology Ð determines personal attributes and makes predictions based upon those characteristics. Although through personal evaluations such as the Meyers-Briggs test one can recognize much about oneself, these simplistic tests fail to capture the true depth and constant permutations everyone experiences. My personal results seemed to highlight my learning style generally, but I find that I must adjust my approach to studying almost daily based on my current mindset; further, my results matched my sentiments concerning writing informal or short term essays, but any formal papers or lengthy assignments demand a different, more focused approach than my test results indicate I practice.
    At the outset, I found myself quite surprised by the accuracy of the test results I received from a Meyers-Briggs psychological ÒtypeÓ test found on www.similarminds.com/jung.html. Three of four adjectives Р Òintuition,Ó Òthinking,Ó and ÒjudgingÓ Ð corresponded to the adjective I had picked to describe my learning style when reading through the course anthology before thinking about this essay. Immediately I related to the characteristics of someone who learns through intuition because I love analyzing text carefully and defining an assignment myself despite my desire for set criteria. This desire, though, led me to feel I was a ÒthinkingÓ learner, and upon further inspection I found I agreed with the other traits of a Òthinker.Ó Finally, my urgency to consider only one subject at a time and finish a project before starting another led me to feel a connection with the ÒjudgingÓ learning style. The only disparity I found was my diagnosis as Òintroverted:Ó Although throughout my life I have continuously been described as shy or quiet, I have always felt myself to be an extrovert. For example, in order to understand any poem I read last year in English, I had to force myself not only to read it aloud to myself, but also to further my comprehension by discussing it with my peers, parents, or anyone Ð quite literally - who would listen. This need to brainstorm before settling on an option along with my inclination to discuss each minute detail of a concept aloud before putting any idea on paper lead me to believe myself an Òextrovert.Ó However, when I considered the qualities of an introvert more carefully I realized that I relate to some of them often and some of them on a case-by-case basis. For instance, I prefer to study alone and I do not normally volunteer immediately. However, my attention span varies from the extrovertÕs short one to the introvertÕs lengthier one. After this discovery, I reexamined my other, test-determined Òtypes,Ó this time also reading the writing characteristics defined in the anthology. In my second read through I found that many of my traits are not so easily characterized. I simply do not fit one mold or the other. Like an extrovert, I must talk about my ideas before I put them on paperÉif my writing must be formal; like an introvert, I must make an outlineÉ if writing a lengthy paper. However, I have often found that my stream-of-consciousness writing with a follow-up rewrite has lead to some of my best papers Ð a characteristic of an extrovert. In those same papers, I tend to not be sure where the paper is going Ð like an introvert. Overall, I do not think that this variety of learning or writing style has hindered me. I have learned to cope with the way my mind is currently functioning and have normally left time for revisions and rewrites.
    Taken as a whole, I believe tests such as the Meyers- Briggs psychological ÒtypeÓ test can never completely encompass the entirety of a learning or writing style; however, the tests are quite useful in drawing oneÕs attention to the different focuses, distractions, and techniques a writer or learner must employ. So, like the daily horoscopes, vague wording and broad generalizations can lead uncertain people to feel a strong connection to a simplistic description and thus define themselves as flatter personages than they are. In the somewhat indistinct yet generally insightful words of Douglas Adams,  ÒÉ[b]ut when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. ItÕs just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge.Ó So it is with a test attempting to define a personÕs mentality: The test is merely a means of evaluating a particular method of reasoning, a method providing a fragmented snapshot of a mindÕs complex inner-workings.