Third time a charm?

Next week I'll be taking an editing test for a copy editing position I applied for at The Motley Fool.

TMF is located in an office complex that I've been to before—twice to take editing tests, both of which I failed.

The first time was at the Rand Corp., in the same building as TMF. The test was to edit some report about the Middle East. It was filled with Arabic names. Rather than having my wits about me and inserting a note re "check spelling of names," I looked up as many as I could in the hour (I had access to the Internet), which left me no time to edit the document. Failed.

The second time was at the Society for Human Resources Management, across the street. I was given a sh!tload of related news reports and told to write a summary along the lines of a newsletter briefing report. I had an hour. I couldn't even get through reading the material in that time. Close to the end of the hour I got up and left. Failed.

So it's the third time is a charm vs. things come in threes.