Difficult Questions

I took an oral exam yesterday to become a teacher at a public school in Tokushima Prefecture. There were five panelists in the room and I answered the questions from them. The hardest part was role playing. One of the panelists acted as a female student and she said, “Because I don’t have my smartphone, I cannot get along with my close friends. How should I overcome this situation?” I had to say something to improve her situation. I was not able to say any good comment, so I probably failed the exam. It was not realistic to say, “ask your parents to buy you a smartphone” and “you don’t need to worry about the situation because communicating through SNS is not everything.” What a mean panel. I never want to see them again.