Your friend Ted tends to view the world with a pessimistic attitude. He just failed a test and is ...

To help shift Ted away from this pessimistic attitude and toward a more productive one, we'll need to challenge his thoughts. First, I would help Ted look at the evidence. For example, how much does this test count? How likely is that he will fail the course because of this one failing grade? What are his other grades in this course and his other courses? I would also ask him other challenging questions (i.e. has anyone else ever failed a test and still passed the course? Have others failed a course yet were still able to graduate from college?). Hopefully these challenging questions will help him keep this failing grade in perspective. Then, I would talk to him about strategies he can use (tutoring, study strategies) to perform better next time.

Powerful stuff here, thanks