First off, happy 50th birthday to my friend Jeff; he starts off a year of people turning 50 all around me.
There’s no other way to put it: the CSET test was brutal. The rules alone were enough to put one off (no electronics of any kind that have an on/off button, no mechanical pencils, no pens, only water in a label-less, clear container and an apple or banana can be brought into the classroom, but it won’t be near you and you can only access them once. Once the door closes, you are allowed one bathroom break until you leave). Well, since I did my usual trick of drinking lots of coffee just prior to coming in, I had to go several times just before the door closed. The “reading of the rules” part after the door had closed took 45 minutes. Only then did the five hour clock begin. By that time, I had to go to the bathroom again, but I held it through test 1 of 3.
Armed with 12 sharpened wooden pencils (which I despise), I started test #1 on World History. The multiple choice was tricky, but I found the three essay questions to be pretty straight forward. As my new buddy John had mentioned, there would be an essay question on China, and there was. I felt confident in my answer until I looked up the information after the test… I had (confidently) put down the wrong dynasty name in the first sentence! I had put down the name of an old friend of mine instead. His name is Zhang… but there is no Zhang dynasty. Oops.
The World History test took me almost two hours to complete, largely because my hand was cramping so bad on the three essay questions that I couldn’t quickly finish them. Wow, this only gave me three hours to complete the other two tests. This, I suppose, is why they don’t recommend that you take three tests in a single setting. I would have to go faster.
The US History test seemed harder than the World History test, but yet again, the essay questions seemed very doable. My hand still cramped, but not as bad this time. I also wasn’t as verbose. I finished this test in an hour.
I was absolutely stunned by the difficulty of the last “catch-all” test of California History, Civics and Economics. I had aced all the practice tests, so I didn’t feel I needed to study as hard on this one. I was very, very wrong. Most of the time, I must have had a blank look on my face as I puzzled through each question. Also, I was getting very “brain tired” and I was about at my limit. It didn’t help that a lot of the questions seemed to be of the “choose the best of these” type questions. With all the answers more or less correct, and one being more correct than the rest, I had a hard time deciding. At least the essays were easy (though with severe hand cramps, I began alternating hands out of desperation). Sort of funny, but I was just warming up on the first essay when I hit the bottom of the page and realized that unlike the other two first essays, this was meant to be a one page answer, not two. I had to erase and simplify my answer (all the while stressing out because I was already on pencil #8, and it was sort of impractical to sharpen your pencils in this room – let’s just say that sharpening pencils was highly discouraged.). In other words, my first essay was weak, being all intro and no body. The other two were better. I also finished this test in an hour. Four hours total to take these three tests; my brain was mush. I was also one of four people left in the room. We had started with around 25 (each taking a different test to discourage peeking/cheating). I got to the car, looked up my Chinese dynasties (shoot; missed that one!) and then went home. I my brain felt completely shredded for the remainder of the day.
I do not know if I passed any of the three tests, though I suspect that I probably passed two of them… maybe three… maybe zero – I don’t know! The results won’t come out for a month. Until then, I sort of have to wait and hope I passed them all, and also hope that I didn’t lose too much data if I did not.