It’s four days until the test. Four days. Each May, I suffer from test anxiety. One hundred and six of my charges will be sitting for the Advanced Placement Literature exam Thursday.
Ironically, students seem relaxed; I am the basket case.
My students missed the Anxiety 101 classes you and I took. As the test approaches, they continue to check text messages surreptitiously under their desks.
In the “dry run” test last week, one otherwise intelligent student wrote on “1984.” The problem? He couldn’t remember the main character’s name: “For the purposes of this essay, I will just call him Bob.” He didn’t care enough to choose a novel he remembered well.
The contrast between my mood and my students’ was even clearer to me Friday, the last class day before the test. As they sauntered into the room, I was poised for action. I had an agenda; I had a mission. I wanted to review two novels and a play in 90 minutes.
“Ninety minutes,” they said. “Just enough time to watch a movie!”
Shannon arrived balancing six balloons, two cakes and a dozen cupcakes — gifts from friends on her birthday. “How can anyone have a birthday right before the big test?” I thought, unreasonably.
Reason prevailing, we all sang “Happy Birthday.” But then it was time for test prep.
I read aloud two brilliant essays from the dry run (the one about Bob was not one of them). Authors Michelle and Rebekah are models of the perfect AP student: Bright and diligent, despite their acceptances to the University of Virginia.
“Hearing their words might lead others to pattern themselves after these paragons of virtue,” I theorized.
Not 15 minutes later, my Virtuous Two were eating a piece of Shannon’s birthday cake and doing calculus homework, respectively.
Yet I let these transgressions slide, knowing both will ace the test despite my anxiety.
I should worry instead about the “stealth dreamers:” They are distracted, but daydream under my radar. They stare ahead and nod, yet don’t hear a word.
All this contributes to teacher angst in May. Could I have done something differently? Should I have been meaner? Nicer? More interactive? More didactic?
And how will they do on this week’s exam? The words every teacher dread: “The test was easy.” That means student and teacher alike are doomed.
The test is never easy. As I learn when I help grade the AP Lit exam, each passage is complicated and rich with nuance. The best students will recognize that, will make a valiant effort to capture the complexities in a short period of time, and will feel inadequate to the task.
I, too, feel inadequate to my task. Students are as puzzling and complicated as the passages they explicate. So I face a different kind of “test.” How will I do?
Will their scores, arriving mid-July, tell me? My “score” is probably unquantifiable. Maybe even their learning is unquantifiable.
But at least, starting July, I will sleep better — until next year.
Erica Jacobs teaches at Oakton High School and George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected].
