On Exams
I've finally kicked my butt into gear and looked into the registration process for the Florida General Knowledge Exam which I must complete before the beginning of October if I want to keep my job. The act of looking it up and filling out the registration forms online brings back memories of high school and registration for the SATs, IB and AP exams. There is this distinct feeling I get when I think about exams. I dread them in general, but at the same time look at it with a fairly large ego. I've never done horrible on a general knowledge test. The FCAT was remarkably easy in my memory, and the SATs, while a good deal harder than the FCAT, presented only things I had seen and studied before.
In fact, I don't think I've ever had a horrible experience in an exam. There was the ACT, which I took on the morning after our second performance of "Les Miserables" for which I was only half awake. But even then, my score was better than average; I didn't get the score I wanted, but it was still better than many. Incidentally, I took that exam at the school where I now teach. I recall the first day of IB Chemistry being difficult, but I attribute that to the unfortunate schedule which placed it after IB History, thus my brain was already fried. In hindsight, spending the lunch break at the bowling alley thinking of anything but chemistry was perhaps not the best choice. The AP Calculus AB exam was absolutely atrocious. Since our main focus was the IB Calculus exam, we hadn't really prepared for the AP. Also, I had missed a few important days because of Drama (go figure) and could not for the life of me find the volume of a shape rotated around the x-axis (or the y-axis for that matter). I spent most of that exam doodling and drawing fish in a cylinder.
Yes, my senior year of high school was full of exams, some fairly easy, other decidedly not. My main memory is going in with confidence. Never nervous, always a little unsure, but confident. Hopefully this time around it will be the same.
2 comments:
Oh my gosh, I haven't thought about IB or the exams in SO long.
That AP Calc was a bear. I don't even remember what you're talking about (shapes rotating around axes).
I took a general knowledge test last year for grad school in IL. It was dreadfully long but a huge piece of cake. I was like "Seriously? I just had to pay to take this piece of crap?"
Specific grad. school classes have broken me of unshaken confidence in exams, but still I don't sweat most of them. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Remember Front Row at Spiderman after the Physics exam? (did you do Physics and Chem or just Chem? I'm hazy on who was with me in which specific classes. . . . except for Rowland and Ms. . . uh. . the history before Roland. I remember those b/c we had a water fight in Rowland's class and Eze and Billy, maybe Rosa too, made you pass out in Ms. whoever's class). Wow, tangent.s
I wasn't in Physics, but I do remember Spiderman. I hadn't thought about exams either until my students started missing classes for AP exams. It's a little weird, seeing it from the other end. I'm glad there isn't an AP exam in my subject though, I don't think I could handle it.
Anyway, the history before Rowland was Ms. Ginalski, and I remember sleeping a lot in that class. I think that was the first class I ever had with you; unless we're counting the time you visited during Sophomore year and sat in on Richardville's class. Anyway, funny the things you remember.
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