"If two is less then one then write...HEY why are you moving your pencil?!

Hail and well met!

I have survived taking the TEST. It was an interesting exercise in watching human behavior.

First of all I almost didn't make it thanks to traffic. Took me over an hour and a half to get from my house to the convention center, almost double what Mapquest said. Now don't think that I take Mapquest at its word when it give me a time, cause I don't. I left an hour and a half early figuring that if it said 45 minutes it would be closer to an hour. But I made it and that is what counts.

Finding parking was another story. There was not one single free parking area around there. Damn convention centers. Luckily I discovered a $2.00 all day parking garage across the street. It was not marked anywhere but on the entrance off a side street, sneaky bastards! But Matt-Man ferreted it out.

Now the packet said that it started at 1:00 and that anyone showing up late would not be allowed in. I ran across the street to the convention center at 12:58 by my watch (which is + or- 5 minutes to anyone else's watch) and was sweating it. Then I see the line. Yeah should have figured that the post office would be on government time, not real time.

We filed in and it got started somewhere around 1:30.

There were close to if not over 100 people there for the test. We were ushered into a large ball room with round tables in it and seated 5 to a table.

Now for anyone who can picture that it should be obvious that secrecy and privacy was impossible. If someone wanted to look at you sheet it was just a glance away. Hell I even caught myself looking to see how many questions my fellow test takers had finished on any given sections, just to compare my volume against theirs. Of course the number of answers is only important if they are correct and that is something I won't find out for 4 to 6 weeks.

All in all I feel real good about the test. I cannot go into detail about it as we were informed that it is a matter of secrecy and to do so would be illegal. Personally I don't want the Post Office Secret Police beating down my door for revealing state secrets.

I will say this. I have to wonder what our so called education system is doing. One section of the test is based on your ability to follow directions. You listen and follow the verbal directions of the test supervisor. Not to tread on that fine line of secrecy versus freedom of speech but this one is in the packet that they allowed out of the building and closely mirrors something that happened in the test.

The supervisor tells us this "If two is less then one then mark..." So you get the idea. If TWO is LESS then ONE you will write something somewhere. Obviously since TWO is NOT LESS then ONE you should ignore anything you are told to do. As I sat there I caught a glimpse of A LOT of people moving or already marking on their sheet.

WHAT!? How in Gods name could you not know a simple thing like two is not less then one?

I am not a scholar nor a college graduate but I sure can say that I know that TWO is GREATER then ONE. And from the age and conversations I over heard some of the people that were scribbling had college educations! I almost laughed and cried at the same time.

On a totally personal and selfish note I said with a slight grin "Good for you keep it up". Yeah I can be a bastard at times.

Well anyway the fun did not stop there. After we finished the test the supervisor and assistants had to collect and count the test booklets and answer sheets, for security reasons. As they were doing this several people got up and left. Now having been the product of public schooling I know that you do not get up and leave a room like this without being given permission first. Sure enough the supervisor got on and told them to sit back down until they were released. This of course was not good enough and several people went to stand by the door. Not a good idea. Again the supervisor told them that nobody was leaving until they had planted their butts back in their seats. You could see the outrage on some of their faces. Personally I just smiled and chuckled as did several of those at my table.

To make a long story short we left and that was that.

All in all I feel good about it, I know that most of the questions I answered were correct. I mean there was one part that really stumped me at first but I used the ole' knoggin and figured out a way to beat the system.

The test was Scan-tron, the best and most technologically advanced way to take a test...IN the 70's! My high school was still using this in the 80's and that is 20 years ago. Now I know that it is a rather efficient way to give a test in terms of "low-tech". All you need is a scantron sheet and a number 2 pencil. Then you shoot it through the machine and wa la you have a scored test. It just seems that in this day and age they would have something more "leading edge" or at least something from the 90's. Ah well I digress.

The section that gave me the willies was memorization. I have a mind like a bucket made of Swiss cheese, well at least short term. I have some good retention long term but still not top of the class...Ok I would be the D student in the class but not for lack of effort so I would get the pity C. There were numbers and names in boxes and you had to be able to put those boxes down as you saw the names and numbers in a list. I was almost ready to throw up and pass out to avoid this part when it came to me.

Now knowing that from their instructions that they did not expect us to answer all the questions on any part of the test I knew that unanswered questions did not count against your score. With this in mind and the fact that wrong answers counted against you I knew that if I could answer only a few questions with a 100% rate of correct answers I would be ahead of someone who answered more with a lower percentage.

So I set to memorizing the names, since I knew that the numbers were right out. When the moment for the test to begin that section I just answered those questions concerning the names. I am absolutely sure that I was 99 if not 100% correct on all of them. WOOT!

Okay that is enough for now. I have stuff that I have to do and people to see.

Hope to see some of you soon, and anyone else I hope to talk or type at you instead.

May the Force be with you

Excelsior!!!