Testing

Took the Basic Skills / General Knowledge Exam here in Home State today, a key requirement for certification. You may recall from an earlier post (June 11th, to be exact) that individuals with a combined math and verbal ACT score of 42 or higher may be exempted from this exam back in the other state, but it's required here regardless of one's ACT or SAT score.

You may also recall that on June 9th I discussed the fact I'd taken several practice exams for this Basic Skills test, and was concerned about how difficult / tricky the questions were. On all three practice exams, I barely managed to pass the English Skills part of the test, because the mistakes they hid in sentences were (in my opinion) very difficult to find unless you are paying very close attention. Given my cavalier attitude toward testing, I could easily see myself failing because I wasn't giving each question due thought and deliberation.

So today, I took the actual test, and I swear it's a completely, fundamentally, totally different entity. It was perhaps the most ridiculously easy test ever. Find the error: Mary and he gave John and me the baseball us had asked for. OK, I can see how people might bite on the "he" or "me," but even if a marginally intelligent person with mediocre grammar skills was about to mark (a) or (b), here comes (c) -- "the baseball US had asked for." I used approximately 1 1/2 hours of my allotted 4 1/2, and it only took that long because I felt bad about finishing the sections so quickly, and went back and did all the questions a second time. The only question I had difficulty with was in the "basic skills math" section, because I don't recall what a scalene triangle is. Fortunately, the combination of answer options provided made the correct answer obvious, so I didn't fret too long over my weak vocabulary.

So that's done, almost. One of the sections requires writing an essay of "no more than 8000 words." My essay was, oh, 700 words, tops. Still, I have to believe it will pass, particularly given the unbelievably low standards for passing the other sections. Now I have to make it through Day 1 of school, which is seeming more and more daunting by the moment. I've spent the week cleaning my room and trying to figure out all the different stuff I am supposed to know, or need to know, or would be helpful to know... it's incredible. More on that later.