And then I’m supposed to take the separate purple answer sheet and circle A B C D on it what were H.o.p.’s answers, for our record and in case anything happens to the test in transit so we can send it in.
And I am freaking out because many of the test answer arrangements aren’t linear like this
0
0
0
0
They’re instead like this
0 0
0 0
And I’m wondering what is B? Is the below ‘X’ the correct placement of B?
0 X
0 0
Or is the below ‘X’ the correct placement of B?
0 0
X 0
I look through all the accompanying papers to see if there’s clarification and if there is I don’t locate it.
My natural inclination is for B to be
0 0
X 0
and I suspect this is wrong.
Oh, wait, then I see I’d looked over at the top of the purple page where they’d noted that when answers are stacked then B is directly below A.
Of course (of course, for me), where do my thoughts next go to but there are people out there managing wars and throwing billions of dollars around and deciding the future of millions of individuals, and they’re no more intelligent than I am…and I’m sitting here with this purple sheet of record keeping paper for the CAT 5 13 standardized test and I can’t figure out which circle is B? Which stops me cold? I figure they’re no more intelligent than I am because when I was 14 I had the IQ test that lets you know how well you place in white European society and my “smart” younger brother later blanched when he learned we both had the same IQ, and I figure mine may have even been a few points above that because I was pretty heavily medicated at the time I was tested and was scarcely aware of what I was doing. Though I did poorly in school, this younger brother was always scoring straight 100s on his tests and later ended up at Yale so I know that at least as far as white European society measures it I am supposedly an intelligent individual, probably at least as intelligent on the white European number charts as the Yalies and Harvardites that went on to managing wars and throwing billions of dollars around and deciding the future of millions of individuals. And many days I sit here and I think how in the hell can anyone presume themselves capable, with any degree of ethical certainty and intellectual confidence, of waging huge wars that decide the future of millions of individuals when they’re likely no more intelligent than I am, and I wouldn’t want the responsibility of sending one single person to war or the responsibility of wasting lives with bombs and everything else that twisted minds dream up for nothing but killing and destruction. I’m not omniscient.
I sit here looking at this purple piece of paper that has only to do with one boy, my son, and waste a decent amount of time trying to look for confirmation as to which is B and I’m thinking people who are perhaps no more intelligent than I am put together wars in a matter of weeks–and where do they find the time in the day to do it?–while I sit here looking at a purple sheet of paper trying to figure out what is the proper B circle.
And I think of all the details that go into the making and waging of a war, numbers and calculations that will then be read and become the basis of a plan and eventually translate into blasted flesh and landscape…and all of it assembled with preening confidence in a matter of a few weeks? Yes, many people are involved assembling those numbers and calculations, and what are advisers for but to advise, and experts expertise. Still…
I can’t help but look at this test and its presentation–that assesses knowledge boiled down and scooped into those little dots filled in with #2 pencil, that is then further removed and represented with circled A B C or D on this purple page of mine–and consider how much money went into this test, and how much is invested in it as an essential tool for determining everything that standardized tests determine, and see it as wrong in the way we prepare kids for the future.
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