Test Day

Today was test day. Medical school test day is pretty much like college test day, except for the fact that the test day is eight hours and half of that is spent walking around a room full of cadavers. Still you have the same distinct characters taking the test who I will describe below.

The early-finishers: I swear, every test the instructor just finishes passing out the one-hundred question exam and at least one student pops up from their chair and heads to the front of the room. Everyone assumes they have bladder issues but then they place their scantron in the finished pile and bound away after four grueling minutes of test taking. Seriously? Did you even read the questions? How can you be in medical school if either a) you don’t bother to actually take a test with full concentration or b) you have sort of ultra-speed power to read, discern, and select the best answer at a rate of 3 thousand words per minute.

Then, there’s the rest of us. I am sure the early finishers have some of the following quirks, but they leave so early I couldn’t pick up on them.

The caffeinated – Part 1 – The bladder busters: This group is frequently confused with the early-finishers because they had to the front of the room at roughly the same time: moments after the test starts. Likely, they decided to down a thermos of coffee after pulling an allnight studying session or just to kick-start test day. About fourty-five minutes later, they find themselves trapped in a testing room and make it about three minutes before waddling to the bathroom in hopes they don’t spend the rest of test day with a characteristic centrally located wet spot. Luckily, they get their problem taken care of early, and often as they leave at least three times in a two-hour test. To qualify for this group, not only must you have a bladder the size of a peanut and a ridiculous penchant for morning liquids, but you must have some sort of ADD to allow you to pop in and out of your seat once every quarter hour

The caffeinated – Part 2 – The bouncers: Some lucky souls can hold their bladders after having to much caffeine. What they cannot hold with their jittering extremities, are their papers, pencils, water bottle, or their own physical body. Once sitting in the seat, they inevitably bounce paper, pencils, pens, and the like all over in a spastic manner. Sometimes, they may become situated and start getting in a groove for a short while. Soon, however, they start to twitch. Think Will Smith doing the shoulder thing where he pretends to hold one from dancing while the other starts. That is what these kids do all test day. They slowly bounce, their left leg, then their right, and then, inexplicably they start bouncing on their toe faster than a hummingbird flaps his wings. I get tired just looking at the bouncing leg, or arm, or pencil, or whatever organ seems to erupt in to spontaneous vacillations. And I cannot not look. I am always situated with two of these individuals located just on my periphery. I see just enough so the constant movement captivates 90% of my attention. Usually, however, by the last ten questions of the test, the leg has stopped bouncing, the caffeine has worn off, and this unlucky student finds him or herself sleepily drooling on their scantron.

The anti-mimes: The anti-mimes are those people who love to be incredibly expressive in all facets of life. During a test, this includes a response to all questions and choices. These are the kind of people who spend half of the time at movies looking at the screen, and the other half looking around to make sure that others see them laughing. Since no one is paying attention to facial expressions during an exam, they resort to audible responses. An easy question draws out a slight laugh as if to see “please, don’t kid me.” A hard question forces a “hmmmm” from the test takers lip. I have not yet learned how to interpret the cacophony of other sounds that erupt from their lips throughout the test. Sighs, throat clears, yawns, and every other audible expression imaginable manage to force their way out of these test takers.

The snifflers: Self explanatory. The only confusing thing is in a room full of people with reams of paper in the form of tests, how could their not be a single piece of paper towel or anything else to wipe the perpetual drain from their nasal cavity.

The paper shufflers: The souls who are determined rather to take the test in sequential order, do approximately one question from each page as to maximize the time spent riffling through pages. I’m not sure if this strategy is effective for anything else than making the people around you crazy. However, when they are done taking the test, their papers at least look as if they took out some aggression on them, so props for that.

The tortoises: Whether it be a nine question test or a nine-hundred question test squeezed into eight minutes or eight hours, the members of this clan will use every last second of allotted time. I am not sure if they pace themselves, allowing ten full minutes for each multiple choice question, or if they just retrace their decision making process for each question six times over. Whatever the method, they make sure they don’t give up their exams until the last call is given out. Again, I am not sure the advantage of this strategy, but it does ensure that by the end of the exam, they will likely have the room to themselves. Maybe not a bad deal after all given the aforementioned.