Oh, standardized testing, you.

[Luxury-Yacht]

Standardized testing: the state's way of seeing if your child is a moron or not. Most of us have gone through this. Some have passed, some have failed, but few enjoyed it. Today, they are known as sadists.

Elementary school was a veritable battery of standardized testing, in all areas of education. Reading, writing, math, you name it. The 4th was probably the worst, with the ELA (English Language Arts) tests causing most of the strain. These tests determined whether you were remedial in your "Language Arts", and could potentially send you to a reading class, and potentially keep you in a special group for the bettering of one's "Language Arts" through 8th grade. Of course, testing this way is totally subjective. Art isn't taught. You can't teach art. This applies to Language Arts, or at least, it should. Why would they call it an art if it wasn't one? Of course, I can't take a writing class to fulfill an Art credit for school courses in order to get my diploma, but whatever.

I remember when I took the test. We separated all the desks, so as to avoid cheating, which probably wasn't necessary; the only people who would need to cheat had reading and writing problems. How could they read off of some fourth grader's poorly penned answers when they could barely read, period? Either way, we turned the class into a collection of islands, each with a population of one (which begs the question, how would Siamese Twins be tested? They couldn't very well be put in different desks, and what if they shared the same writing hand? One of them would be screwed). Then we received our packets, and we were told not to open them until told to do so, or else our scores would be thrown out. That was just cruel. You can't just hand a kid a sealed booklet or package and then tell them not to open it. They will want to open that thing so badly, they'll start to shake. They don't care what's in it, they just want to have it open. Every once in a while, a kid will fold under the pressure and open the packet, and have their test taken away. Of course, they probably won't void his scores, but they'll threaten to do it.

Once the proctor gives the instructions (the same one given to students before every single standardized test they'll ever take), it is time to begin. Wee me opens the booklet, and is doing alright. Then I hit the free-response type section. I call it free response because that's the only thing I can think of to call it. It had no name. It was like an ancient God, borne from darkness before time was spawned, before tongues spoke, floating nameless through nebulae and stardust.

It was a picture of frogs. Three of them, I believe. They sat on a sidewalk under a street light at night. The task was to write was was happening in this picture, or something like that. I choked harder than a Super Bowl field goal kicker in overtime. What could I possibly write here? They were frogs. Frogs are amphibious, metamorphose from tadpoles, and eat insects. That's all you need to know about frogs. And yet, here I was, staring at this picture like it from the pages of I Spy, trying to figure out what to do. All I could think of was Budweiser commercials, with the frogs saying Budweiser in pieces, each of them completing a single syllable of the brand name, and I was pretty sure that writing about a beer commercial would not go over well with the people grading my test. I don't remember what I did next. I might have skipped that question. I may have fallen asleep. I may have run out to the playground and hung myself from the monkey bars. Either way, I did not do well. I scored below average, and had to go through all sorts of shame and shit because of it. To this day, I blame those damned frogs for what happened to me.

Compared to the ELA exam I took, the standardized math test was about as bad. To be honest, I remember nothing about what was on the test- only what happened beforehand. I sat next to the window with my friend Brian, waiting for the tests to be handed out. Other students would have crammed some studying in. We had a swordfight with our pencils. Parrying, slashing, clashing blades of graphite and wood. Of course, since we were about to take a huge test, our pencils were freshly sharpened to a deadly point, which made the contest that much more epic.

Sometime during that struggle, I was wounded. Brian may have let fly a mighty thrust of his blade, or I may have simply been clumsy. Either way, we ended up staring, mouths agape, at the 7 plus inch pencil that was stuck in my palm. I'm not sure which one of us noticed this first- I felt no pain, only a strange pressure. I touched the pencil, tugged on it gently, but nothing happened. The pencil was in there good. Brian had clearly won this battle.

I raised my good hand to tell my teacher of my battle damage. She was on the other side of the room, and asked what was wrong. I lifted my other hand and told her that I had stabbed myself with a pencil. Now, I was notorious for getting out of math class to go to the nurse's office in those days. I'd suddenly get ridiculously tired and somewhat nauseated when it came time for math class. I didn't fake it, though. I just had such a strong mental aversion to mathematics that my body made itself feel like shit in order to get myself out of having to be in class. This led to constant naps in the nurse's office, and my teacher had to stop letting me miss class so frequently. She probably thought I was squeezing my palm together, holding the pencil in my hand, in order to keep from taking this massive test, because I knew damn well that no amount of fatigue would save me from this examination. She came over, eyes rolling at my silly attempt to escape, and told me to put the pencil down. Then she looked at it up close.

That shut her up real quick.

I made my way to the nurse's office, leisurely gallivanting down the hall, proudly showing my horrible wound to anyone in my path. I reached the nurse's office, and she asked me what was wrong. I lifted my hand. She understood. We had an understanding, she and I. She tried pulling it out, but no dice. It was too smooth, and she couldn't grip it well. She walked to a drawer, and pulled out some needle nose pliers and yanked that bad boy out of my palm.

Remember when I said the pencil didn't hurt when I got stabbed? Well, this was no longer the case. After the pencil was removed, THEN it hurt. It felt like someone had... well, like someone had stabbed me in the hand with a pencil. It left a cone shaped indent in my palm, which was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Well worth the pain. Of course, after this, i had to take the test. It was difficult to write (I had been stabbed in my writing hand, of course), but I took it pretty well. I don't remember how I did. That's probably because I didn't care. It was just math.

Anyway, that was probably the most exciting test I ever took.

[Sarcasm]

That has got to be the most epic test story I've ever read.

[Crash-and-burn31]

I just got done taking the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning).

God, I hated it. Especially freewriting.

[Sarcasm]

At 4/10/07 12:25 AM, Blamitality wrote: Sarcasm.

I wasn't being sarcastic.

[Luxury-Yacht]

At 4/10/07 12:26 AM, Xtesh wrote:

At 4/10/07 12:23 AM, Sarcasm wrote: That has got to be the most epic test story I've ever read.

Not as epic as the spring test of '26.

Good times...

That was absolutely savage.

[Sarcasm]

At 4/10/07 12:37 AM, Blamitality wrote: Then change your name.

Yeah, I'll get right on that.

[TheDepthsofHell]

i love how it was an 'epic battle.' that made me laugh a little

[Enoll]

The nurse had pliers? that's alittle creepy, even if they did apply to that situation.

My nose would run during tests, like a tap, even if I knew I was going to do fine.
Plus I'd always resist marking myself down as an aboriginal to get a free extra 20% on my score.

[unowned]

i did only like one exam over a couple subjects during my high school years

the english sucked, but i liked the science.. chemistry and such. math is lame tho, even tho it mostly had to do with money type stuff.. i never studied for it and i forgot how to calculate taxes, so i guess the school thinks im dumb no

but yea i took my time doing it and everyone left before i was finished

[linkofhyrule1]

Over here we got finished taking CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program).
It's incredibly obvious that these stupid tests are designed to assess the teachers' capabilities, not the students', but the students are the ones who pay the price or reap the reward.

[He-Who-Never-Was]

I like the subtle humor of you making fun of standardized tests by making an epic story, but when you take a test you freeze.

You should kick Brian in the teeth and declare a draw.

[Zerok]

Man, you need to post more.

Or less, if not-posting causes a beautiful anecdote like that to bubble up from the wellspring of your memories.

You may also be interested in the relevant link in my sig.

[Leeloo-Minai]

Epic.

Thanks for the read.

[ifeelblood]

DUN DUN DUN

fap

[Luxury-Yacht]

At 4/10/07 02:43 AM, Zerok wrote: Man, you need to post more.

Or less, if not-posting causes a beautiful anecdote like that to bubble up from the wellspring of your memories.

I am flattered. Please excuse the SMELL. OH HO HO.

At 4/10/07 02:34 AM, He-Who-Never-Was wrote: I like the subtle humor of you making fun of standardized tests by making an epic story, but when you take a test you freeze.

You should kick Brian in the teeth and declare a draw.

If I kicked him in the teeth for anything, it would be for him not trading me my Alakazam back when we played pokemon. He stole my Alakazam, because he evolves during a trade- but he never traded it back like we had agreed, that thief.

[CapnCrunchDaPimp]

Wow, epic test. I take ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) and those really suck. Maybe I should make mine more epic and have a pencil swordfight with a Brian I know.

[TacticalShoe]

Oh, this brings me back to the SAT test. What a piece of shit that was.

[Luxury-Yacht]

At 4/10/07 01:26 PM, TacticalShoe wrote: Oh, this brings me back to the SAT test. What a piece of shit that was.

My PSAT was pretty epic, as was my first SAT test.

[Luxury-Yacht]

At 4/10/07 01:05 AM, Enoll wrote: The nurse had pliers? that's alittle creepy, even if they did apply to that situation.

My nose would run during tests, like a tap, even if I knew I was going to do fine.
Plus I'd always resist marking myself down as an aboriginal to get a free extra 20% on my score.

You're an aboriginal?