The Power of Peppermint Is Put to the Test

"I just want to say, I don't think [peppermint] makes you smarter, but it clears your mind and makes you feel more confident," said Alex Sorto, 11, a student at Eastern Middle.

And Binetou Koite, 12, was skeptical. "I don't think the peppermints helped," she said. "I think the teachers just told us that to make us feel more comfortable."

But Imani Rucker, 11, is a believer. "The peppermints were good for me," she said. "They gave me energy and more brain power."

Richard Roberts, a senior research scientist at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., who studies test anxiety and ways to remedy it, said the power of the mind sometimes trumps the reality of science.

Still, the theory is just wild enough to prompt some gentle kidding.

"Can't talk now," said Alison Serino, principal at A. Mario Loiederman Middle School in Silver Spring, in an e-mail. "Running out to get some peppermints."

Serino said she had heard the theory but had never tried it on her students. "If this is true," she added, "we'll start giving them out tomorrow."

Paul Skilton-Sylvester, coordinator of elementary education at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, made this observation, with tongue planted firmly in cheek: "We've found that test scores go up when there's a steady diet of cheese steaks with provolone, in combination with exciting lessons that ask students to wrestle with important ideas connected to real world problems."

Students at Eastern said they think the use of peppermint should continue. That is except for Alex, who had another idea for boosting test scores: broccoli.

Seriously.