Standardized Testing

The month of May is always paired with end of the year finals, core testing, and now introducing AP, ACT, SAT, and SAT2s when winding down the school year. I guess I can understand the reasoning behind these assessments and all this testing, it's coherent that there has to be some way of evaluating what we've comprehended from the school year; although sometimes, a lot of the times, all these multiple choice questions become painfully tedious, stressful, and escalate to dreadful.

I understand that it's important to do well on every test you take, because you never know how it could somehow effect you and you always want to put yourself in the best position for success. When it comes to the core testing at our schools, it's always been a tedious process, but never something to truly worry about. Those scores just go to the state for teacher, school, and district assessment, for the most part; it's always something I try my best on, but I won't loose any sleep over guessing on a question I truly didn't understand.

On the other hand, tests like APs, ACTs, and SATs are starting to affect our collegiate futures and rankings, in other words these tests actually start to "count". These are some of the tests that have been feeding stress and anxiety over the past month, and month-to-come... who am I kidding I guess it never really ends. Between now and the moment I finally get an acceptance letter, I don't think the stress of getting into college will ever really settle, especially the anxiety of it directed towards taking these standardized tests.

Photo Courtesy hbculifestyle.com

When walking into a test room, a wave of tension seizes me. The way the desks are arranged all differently than usual, spread apart from each other as much as possible while still maintaining the linear grid-like pattern and spacial evenness between each desk. While taking a seat I tend to always imagine what I'll be doing when I'm done with the test, and I foresee the moment in the future when I'm looking back at the moment I'm in right then, thinking about how relieved I'll be once I just get the whole thing over with. The worst part is writing my name on the bubble sheet. I just hate those Scantrons so much; they make me feel nauseous by this point.

I think that one of the challenges of staying focused for up to hours at a time during these tests. I honestly think that's 50% of the test, is just maintaining your composure, especially on a test like the ACT, or an AP test, which can be up to three hours long. Just after a few minutes the room seems half the size to me, and continues to shrink the longer I'm in that testing room. The mere sound of someone tapping the pencil in the desk or erasing an answer can make me want to scream.

Testing feels like the end of the world right now, but in truth of it we'll all live. Hopefully another breakthrough of assessing students besides these standardized tests will be relevant soon enough, but for now I'll be filling in those bubbles with a No. 2 pencil, not mechanical of course.