Eden+H’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

Let’s read a very small passage together. “Timmy waltzed on the sidewalk. The individuals passing by gave him weird looks” Now here’s your multiple choice question: What did Timmy waltz on? > Ok, so most of you chose C, since the passage clearly says, “Timmy waltzed on the sidewalk”. However, if this was a question on an actual multiple choice test, and our class was taking it, I would've probably thought, “Hmmmmm well the sidewalk is technically made out of pavement so technically the answer is D.” See Mr. Geib? This is why I am crap at Multiple Choice Tests! It’s because I am extremely overly technical, and I over-think the answer way too much, even if it is this simple. Or it’s due to the fact that I completely blank out when I read the question. Here’s another example question: What year was the start of the Vietnam War? > The answer obviously is C, 1955, and I know that off the top of my head right now but during an exam, I would’ve blanked, and basically said “Screw it” and guessed a random answer. I could've read the question over 10 times, but my brain still can’t and won't come even close to thinking the right answer. Once I blank on a question, done, game over, might as well give up on that question and move on. From my examples, you can all clearly see that I am not a test taker. I frankly cannot take a test to save my ass. Mrs. Anderson gave up on my testing abilities halfway through the first semester, since I kept getting awful test grades. I can never forget that she wrote a lovely little note on my essay response rubric which read, “Wow, you were all over the place - your information wasn't even in order nor it was accurate” She emphasized “in order” and she drew a frowny face with not one tear, not two tears but four tears. *gasp* I feel like she was astonished that I wasn't put into her 4th period class. (if you're in physio, you know what I'm talking about). Oh, and I can't forget about all of the multiple choice tests that we were given in English! Those were awful! If you did even remotely bad it tanked your grade, thus the reason why some of us in this room, including me, still have a C in English due to the last multiple choice test. I remember before the final multiple choice, I announced that I would fail yet again. Geib was like, “Nah you're not gonna fail, everyone does a better on their last one since they're so used to the type of material. Just believe in yourself!” Did I do better? No. And when Geib passed back that test, he gave me that dad look of “ *sigh* kid you're a lost cause”. Even though I am crap at those, I personally don’t want to end the year with a C in English, so uh, Mr. Geib, if you wanna raise that to a B, the B my guest! ;) So I often find myself asking, “Is there something wrong with me?”. When I asked Google, Google diagnosed me with Test Anxiety, and while the symptoms seem accurate, that same search engine told me I had a brain tumor when I searched “Headaches and Dizzy spells equal ____ “. So I am not 100% sure if I can trust it or not. But when I read the ADAA website on Test Anxiety, I came to the conclusion that, yes, I'm pretty sure I, along with the other thousands of people (according to the website) have this. And if I really do have Test Anxiety, then I am pretty much screwed for college. Think about it. Colleges weigh your chances of getting in on the SAT, ACT, and sometimes even the AP tests you take! And when you make it into college, the final and midterm grades for your classes weigh 25% OF YOUR ENTIRE GRADE. That’s a total lose/lose situation for me and all of the other people who just can’t take tests! And it’s not like testing ends once I graduate college. Tests are used as thresholds for nearly every bridge we cross during life, and pop up even when you least expect them to. A job interview, for example, may not be a multiple choice reading comprehension test, but rather a test of certain social skills that can be just as easily failed. Even just meeting someone for the first time is a test of how well you can give a first impression. As a person with relatively confirmed test taking anxiety, it sucks to think that no matter where I go, I’ll always be evaluated by someone or something. Knowing this, there’s no wonder that over 50% of teenagers feel some level of test taking anxiety. Tests like the previously mentioned SAT and ACT weigh heavily on our future careers as students, and that’s a lot of weight to bear. Many of us, myself included, spend a lot of time stressing over these tests because we know they mean a lot. But this only increases my levels of test anxiety and decreases my performance on the test. My test taking anxiety sends me on a downward spiral, where I only end up more anxious and the test can’t do it’s job: to fairly evaluate my knowledge. What’s worse is that some of required standardized tests are completely useless, and we know it. Take, for example, the SBAC test. I know, know, “the test’s greater purpose is to see how well the school is doing academically”; basically it has good intentions. But let’s be real, no one takes that test seriously and no one cares how well they do on it. It’s basically an assessment of who can write the sassiest or the most outrageous responses to spice up the grading. I for one, win the award for the most “out there” answer, since my response for the math portion consisted of me writing a conspiracy theory that proved the math problem that they gave me to solve did not exist. The media center also had a no talking policy when taking the test, but 80% of the people (including me) were semi-whispering and laughing with each other about how dumb the writing prompts were. It was a bonding experience you see? Either way whoever grades Foothill’s SBAC tests are going to have a load of fun when grading our lovely “well thought out” responses. One test that has an actual purpose, is the Behind the Wheel Driving Test. This test is supposed to stop bad or unsafe drivers from driving on the road. It’s SUPPOSED TO. But does iit? Yea sort of, but it only captures a small amount of a person’s actual driving habits. In most cases, drivers who are being tested only show what they know the proctor wants to see. A large amount of individuals can take this test and pass with lets say only 2 points knocked off from their score, but may not have ANYTHING in common. Thus the reason of different types of drivers on the road. I still see the speed racers nwooming through traffic on a busy Monday morning, or and I still see the notorious, annoyingly slow Prius drivers *cough* Peter *cough*. Sometimes you get the occasional Mustang driver who is also extremely slow and loves cutting off other cars. However, when you pull next to them, you see that the driver is a older woman, with her big bubbly sunglasses on. You can also get the drivers who take 15 minutes to make a measly left turn, or the drivers who you can clearly tell that they left their licence at home because they strictly following traffic laws along with driving 10 under the speed limit, and stopping about 6 feet behind stop signs. Or you get someone like me who blasts death metal screamo early in the mornings in order to wake myself up before going to 0 period. Overall, the score from the test alone, just a number, does nothing to measure what kind of a driver a person can be. The driving test matters for the sole reason that we don't want just anyone driving on the road that doesn't know how to. And while it does an okay job of that, it can’t evaluate the actual quality of the driver. One way or another, our world is dependent on various types of tests. A test is the only way a proctor, employer, or teacher can evaluate how well you know the material. So no matter how much I hate tests, (as I’ve said, I am utter crap at them) there will never be a way for me to escape testing throughout my life. Tests are simply inevitable. But that does not make them perfect evaluation tools. As a student, and as someone who will likely struggle with my test anxiety for the rest of my life, I stand by the claim that a test will never define me. A test will never decide how smart I am or what I am capable of, because I know that me taking a test is me at my worst. Tests are commonly used to show progress or growth, but for me and other people with test taking anxiety, they don’t show any of that. So when I think of the America I want to live in, I imagine one where I am not ranked based on an ability that I wasn’t born with and others were. I want an America, or even a single school, where a person’s future isn’t decided through a baseless test. Thank you.
 * 1)  The road B) The park C) The sidewalk D) The pavement
 * 1)  1970 B) 1945 C) 1955 D) 1960