It has never occurred to me just how much I loathe standardized testing.
I hate the expository essays, I hate the persuasive letters I have to write to my fictional congressman stating my opinion on a subject I sincerely haven't any opinion on (and even if I did have an opinion on the matter, why would my fictional congressman care? He's a busy man, I'm sure he has better imaginary things to do), and I hate filling in those little answer bubbles with a number two pencil. Why number two? Why not number three, or perhaps even number four? Why must these tests discriminate against the types of pencils I use? Were I a writing utensil, I would be terribly offended.
What's even more terrifying is that if one cell phone were to go off, all of the tests would become invalid, forcing the entire class to go through the horror that is the HSPA's again, which would be, to me, and most of my classmates I'm sure, a fate worse than death.
I doubt I'll ever be accustomed to the blasted things, either. Whenever I take them, I always feel as nervous as I did when I first took them in the 3rd grade, my free, school-provided bagel sitting uncomfortably in my stomach as I panicked and filled in random bubbles in an attempt to get the test finished in the allotted timeframe. (Truly a terrible thing to do to a small child; provide them with unpleasant food and then make them stress out over something. This childhood trauma is probably one of the many, many reasons I turned out the way I did.)
However, tomorrow is the last day of testing, and then I'm free until senior year, so I suppose that's a plus.
So, I believe that shall be all for tonight, dear Blog.
Adieu.
4 comments:
We had those at our school too, but they were called HSAs. Truly horrible things, they were.
On that uplifting note, good luck!
You said it. They're certainly nauseatingly unpleasant.
I am glad they're finally over and done with.
Oh, how I loathe the spambots...
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