FWIW, I am mildly skeptical that she is actually getting things wrong on purpose as in "I have read the question, know the answer is C, and am putting down A." I do think she is not really trying some of the time, though-- a la, "Who cares...why bother?" This whole conversation came about when I checked some HW and saw she had gotten two VERY easy questions wrong; conversation revealed that she clearly hadn't even read them. They have been doing a lot of on-grade standardized test prep over the last couple of months and I imagine she finds it stultifying.
I have never heard her say before that she doesn't want to be smart (we have downplayed "smart" and never made a big deal of it, but the cat is out of the bag at this point, which is reasonable at 9). So that's new. She was tired during this discussion so I need to talk to her about it a little more. It seemed clear that she was connecting her intelligence to feelings of sadness, dissatisfaction, and isolation that she experiences. She is a great idealist and also extremely eager to grow up. I do think she sees that other children don't experience the frustration, anger, and sense of devastation by the imperfection of the world that she does. So, some of the Webb link definitely applies...
