Plot
Bart presents a book report at Springfield Elementary School on Treasure Island. However, it becomes clear through his report that he has not read the book. Mrs. Krabappel proves her suspicion when Bart is unable to answer her question about the name of the pirate in the book. After school, Mrs. Krabappel tells Bart his grades have steadily gotten worse and warns him about an upcoming exam on Colonial America, but Bart does not pay attention. At home, Bart tries to study but, urged on by Homer, procrastinates instead. The next day at school, Bart collapses in class to get out of taking the test. He is sent to the nurse, who diagnoses him with amoria phlebitis and sends him home. At home that night, Bart yet again fails to study, instead calling Milhouse for the test answers. The next day at school, Bart takes the test but fails tremendously; Krabappel tells him his effort is "worse than Milhouse's exam."
Homer and Marge are called in to meet with Mrs. Krabappel and school psychiatrist Dr. J. Loren Pryor. Dr. Pryor says that Bart is an underachiever and recommends that he repeat the fourth grade. Marge agrees that holding Bart back might not be such a bad idea. However, Bart, who obviously is against this idea, vows that he will start to do better and will pass. In desperation, he asks Martin Prince for help. Martin is initially reluctant to help him, but agrees when Bart agrees to show him how to become more popular. The two initially help each other out, but Martin starts to take on some of Bart's poor character traits. He decides to stop being a book worm and hang out with his new friends and play practical jokes, and forsakes Bart. Left with little time to study on his own, Bart prays to God and asks that something miraculous happen to make him miss school the next day so he can have more time to study. That night, Springfield is hit with a massive blizzard, and the schools are closed.
After receiving word of the school closures, Bart excitedly prepares for a fun snow day. However, Lisa reminds him of his prayer, and he decides to study for the rest of the day while everyone is outside having fun. Bart tries to focus while he is studying, but becomes easily distracted and is forced to literally slap himself continually to continue his studying. The next day, still slapping himself, he finishes the test and asks Mrs. Krabappel to grade it immediately. She does so, and tells him that he gets a 59%, failing by just one point. Depressed at having failed despite having actually made an effort, Bart breaks down in tears and compares his failure to George Washington's surrender of Fort Necessity to the French in 1754. Mrs. Krabappel, stunned at this obscure historical reference, realizes that Bart does make an honest effort after all. She decides to give Bart an extra point for demonstrating applied knowledge, pushing his grade up to a D-, barely passing. Bart is proud of this, and he runs throughout Springfield, yelling to people that he actually passed. Homer proudly displays Bart's new personal best on the refrigerator, and Bart declares that part of the D- "belongs to God."
Read more about this topic: Bart Gets An F
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“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
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I want to make
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
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