From the Classroom: The Midterm Diaries, Part 1
There are not a lot of things that can strike unrelenting and complete fear into the heart of today’s teens.
For girls: “OMG, like, I was using your cell phone, and I just, like, broke it.”
For guys: “Justin Bieber‘s coming to town and I want you to go see him with me!”
But there is one word, two syllables, that is the ultimate fearmonger:
“Midterms.”
So, if you wonder why any teens you see this next week or so look scared half to death, now you know why.
To show you what they’re going through (because, after all, times have changed since you took your last midterm), I’m giving you a play-by-play of the exam period.
Tuesday:
Last day before exam review period. Teachers start review anyway, except for my geometry teacher, who gives a test.
Have the opportunity to study last period, but instead watch some girl look at pictures of her buxom cheerleader friends on her phone. Placated my conscience by passing it off as geometry–you know, spheres.
Make a study sheet for French. There’s not a lot to put on there, so I fill it up with facts from Dave Barry‘s travel books.
“When pronouncing the French ‘r’, pretend you are dislodging an eel from your throat”.
Read all the history handouts from this semester. Found myself asking vital questions, such as “What is a Mesopotamia?”. Find that I have retained some knowledge about ancient cultures:
- These people are dead.
- They prayed a lot.
Reward self for retaining said knowledge with a Facebook detour.
Studying going very well.
Wednesday:
First day of review. For most classes, this just means practice tests, which go by very breezily. Our physics teacher put a problem up on the board that he felt would take us a couple minutes to solve. I solved it in twenty seconds in my head. I expect to be spending a long portion of the physics exam reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.
We went over the material we were going to be quizzed on in art. My art teacher (yes, the same one who was trying to teach me about opposite colors) and I had a debate about whether the stable government or the desert on both sides of the Nile was more critical to Egyptian art being able to develop and thrive over 2500 years. I maintain that a stable government is critical to developing a lasting aesthetic style. She maintains that sand is.
Informed that we are going to have a new part to our ancient civilizations exam, where we explain topics (such as justice, morality) in the voice of a historical or literary figure we’ve studied.
I’ve decided to pick Hammurabi, who wrote Hammurabi’s Code of Laws (brief summary of said code: I am Hammurabi and I have a lot of laws. Break them and die.)
See, the reason I pick him is because he goes on and on and on describing himself before he gets to the meat of his laws. So I figure I can say:
Prince Hamurabi am I, who opened the gates to the city of Ur, who slew the bandits pillaging the city of Uruk, who was petitioned by the gods to rule over the people, who protects the people from danger, who blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah oh darn, out of room.
Started doing practice Geometry test. Rejoice at finding that I have retained all the knowledge from the beginning of the semester. Despair at finding that I have forgot all about what we just studied last week.
Thursday:
Wrote a satirical love song about Sarah Palin on the bus up to school. Any review I could have taken in was drowned out by me humming to myself:
“Sarah Palin, you’re the perfect prize/your big heart makes up for a brain a fifth its size….” etc.
Drama class, in which we have no midterm, had us playing the game ‘Password’. When we had the word ‘sweat’, the person giving clues on our team passed. The next team got it immediately, on the clue ‘perspiration’. Our clue-giver confessed that the best she was able to think up had been ‘body water’.
In Geometry, the teacher went over some test problems. I got bored and typed the lyrics to American Pie on my calculator.
In history class, we went over the Asian religions, which were actually more spiritual-harmony-with-nature concepts, or, as my friend put it, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not God!”
I went over my Ancient Civilization notes on the way home, while listening to punk rock on my iPod. My essay questions will probably end up looking like this:
…in conclusion, Hammurabi saw justice as a very necessary DON’T WANNA BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT, NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA and saw to it that it was enforced strictly and that offenses were dealt with STACEY’S MOM HAS GOT IT GOIN’ ON essential part of Mesopotamian society.
Studied some proofs and decided I could never ever ever ever ever be a lawyer. Who says school doesn’t prepare you for the real world?
Remembered that the people in Haiti have it worse off than I do, much worse. Wonder if I could get extra credit from a sympathetic teacher if I told them I donated $5 to the Red Cross.
First exam tomorrow, and, of course, Eye On Annapolis gets exclusive coverage.
Friday:
Friday was the first exam of my high school career. It covered Ancient Civilizations. Based on different accounts I’d heard, the exam would be really easy (questions such as “Say something vague about Ancient Egypt”) or ridiculously tough (“In Hammurabi’s self-titled biography, Hammurabi: King of Kings, which we have never read, he says, to wit, لقد كان الملك الذي جعل الكثير من القوانين. What does he mean by this and what does it say about Mesopotamian Society, human nature, and Tom Cruise?)
I threw together a bag of stuff I would need for exams and got in the car. Halfway to school, I realized I had forgotten a pencil. I urgently put in a request on my Facebook status frantically asking that all of my friends bring me a pencil.
Then I realized that we were taking the test on computers. Thank god for the ‘delete’ button on Facebook.
School was a bad place for people with peppermints. It had leaked the day before that peppermint increased your brain power, so we hung around them until they relinquished the mind-steroids. If Altoids changed their name to ‘smartening pills’, God knows what it could do for their sales.
Then we were ushered into the computer lab. Nervousness hung in the air like rotten mistletoe, and the teachers made it worse by talking to each other in hushed tones and imploring students not to turn their papers over, as if there was a monster that would jump out and bite us. They might as well have played the theme from ‘Jaws’.
“Turn your papers over.”
The moment of truth had come. The day of judgment was upon us.
I turned my paper over.
It was easy. Vague essay questions, easily identifiably quotes, and a “what would person x say about concept y” section that was relatively simple. Now that I know I can perform under pressure, I’m considering a summer job with a police bomb squad.
Next up, a weekend of studying. The art teachers have been kind enough to provide us with the questions and answers to the test, as well as what to say on the essay question, so it’s time for some hardcore memorization. The next week, I’ll be covering my exams in physics, art, geometry, and French, as well as producing another top 10: Seth’s Top Ten Test-Taking Tips (subtitle: The alliteration continues). Will I survive my Geometry exam? Will my art teachers randomly change the questions on us? Will my tips be useful instead of being a conglomerate of Sarah Palin/Justin Bieber jokes? Look for The Midterm Diaries, Part 2 for the answers!
Stay in school,
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Category: From The Classroom
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