Kids who eschewed TV to overachieve in school are crying over the SAT essay question about reality TV shows.

Oh! Cruel irony! It vexes!

“This is one of those moments when I wish I actually watched TV,” one test-taker wrote on Saturday on the Web site College Confidential, under the user name “littlepenguin.”

“I ended up talking about Jacob Riis and how any form of media cannot capture reality objectively,” he wrote, invoking the 19th-century social reformer. “I kinda want to cry right now.”

Less than a minute later, a fellow test-taker identified as “krndandaman” responded: “I don’t watch tv at all so it was hard for me. I have no interest in reality tv shows...”

Quit crying. All you need is test-taking skills:

Peter Kauffmann, vice president of communications for the College Board, said that “everything you need to write the essay is in the essay prompt.”

Don't you just know that some of these test-takers will go the rest of their lives fretting about what might have been if only they'd been asked about one of the more elite things they'd studied and not this lesser topic that the inferior teenagers knew so much about precisely because they hadn't worked so hard and with such virtuous self-denial? But some of these hardcore grinds might get a clue: Maybe life will work out just as well if I give myself a break, relax, and have some fun.