Testing Day is Upon Me
One bright Monday morning, I went down to CSTCC to take my pre-admission math test.
I entered the cramped & hot (the air conditioner wasn’t working) testing lab and signed in at the front desk, and was told that I’d have to wait a little bit before I could go in because the testing lab was full at the moment.
Settling in to the uncomfortable chair, I waited and talked to the girl running the testing lab. She told me that I’d only have to take the math portion, and that the test was computer-based and performance-driven. Apparently, the worse I did on the test, the more questions it would ask me. If I did well on the harder questions, I’d have fewer of them to answer.
Fully expecting to be there for the rest of my life (I am no math wiz!), I entered the testing lab which was full of young students (they all look like babies to me) staring fixedly at their computer screens. Settling in to a desk by a window, I began the test.
The very first question on the test stumped me. It was something along the lines of “At what mathematics level do you want to begin the test?”. Seeing that ELEMENTARY MATH was not one of the options, I settled for the middle choice.
I don’t specify what the middle choice was in this report, mind you; not because I do not remember what it was, but rather because this sets up the methodology by which I answered many of the questions on the test… I’d think, “well, I haven’t guessed a vowel in a while… Let’s answer this question with a vowel!”
The test commenced. Some of the questions were quiet easy; little more than multiplication and division. Some of the questions were material I’d never taken in my limited math experience and I resorted to the guessing scenario above. Seriously… I did pretty much ‘educated guessing’, some ‘I know this is the answer’, a bit of deductive reasoning, and more flat-out guessing than I care to admit.
After what seemed like a long time, the computer screen cleared and displayed “Working…” and a progress bar crawled slowly across the window. “Well, shit,” I thought, “I’ve done so poorly that the program has run out of questions to ask me.” Soon, the progress bar made it across the screen and I was told TESTING COMPLETE, and that I should go wait in the reception area and a counselor would come out to discuss my results.
Results? Already?
Counselor?!
So I went back to the uncomfortable chair in the reception area and waited. I was more nervous than I thought I’d be waiting to find out if I’d passed the math portion.
Shortly, a counselor (who couldn’t have been more than 22 years old) came out and called my name. We went back into his office, which had a lovely view of a dumpster, to talk about my test results.
No doubt seeing the anxiety on my face, he started our conversation by telling me that I’d passed the test and would not need to take any additional math classes beyond whatever was required for my academic program. He told me that the results of the test would be posted to my admissions account in two business days and gave me a printout of my scores. The entire test took me less than 30 minutes to complete, and I PASSED!