Test strest

Students always seem to think it's odd that I get stressed out when they're taking tests. The problem seems to be that I unconsciously empathize with the students and pick up their stress telepathically or something. It must be that, because I was never scared of tests. They were something you had to do and they had the advantage over writing papers that they were over when they were over, no matter how much or how little you did.

My favorite test memory is from Wharton. Accounting was a required couse for MBAs, and although it was never stated explicitly, it was well known that in order to pass the course you had to score 200 points combined on the 3 tests. As the semester progressed, those of us paying attention noticed that the class average had been around 80 on each of the first 2 tests. This led us to dismiss the 200 point thing as a rumor. So we walk into the final, I look at my test and I don't know the answers to any of the questions, and I only know how to begin some of them. I was aghast (actually, it was a long time ago and maybe I was merely surprised).

To put this in perspective, by this time I was in my 15th year of school and I never worried about failing because I never, ever choked on tests. I never blanked. And since there were always at least a few people in my classes who would blank, I would invariably do better than them, even if they actually knew the stuff better than me.

So I sit there thinking, "It's finally happened. I've blanked on a test." I worked on the bits and pieces of the problems that I knew but didn't finish anything. I was a 2 hour test, and with about 20 minutes left, the instructors stopped us to make an announcement. They said there was a typo on one problem (so obvious I'd already corrected it myself) so we could have an extra 10 minutes to finish. This prompted all 100 or so of us in the room to simultaneously start laughing nervously and muttering, and suddenly I realized, it wasn't me. Nobody knew any of it.

Wouldn't you know it? Those accounting professors were sticking to their 200 point thing, and since the average student had a total of 160 points after the first 2 tests, they created an impossible final with the goal of having a class average of 40. And they succeeded. I got a 61. It was the second highest grade in the class. That was in 1979 and it's the last test I took that I actually remember to this day.