The Exhausted Dad: Test-taking strategies from the 6th grade

For my last final of the semester, I followed the advice of my 11-year-old daughter.

“Read it once. Move on. Don’t waste your time reading it a second time. Just go with Answer D.”

Had I followed this advice for any of my other finals, I might have been in trouble. But for this test, it was the best advice of the year.

Also, to be fair, Answer Choice D really is the new Answer Choice C, especially when it comes coupled with “All of the Above” or “None of the Above.” Honestly, you can’t go wrong.

At many points, my first year in graduate school mirrored my daughter’s first year of middle school. We hauled massive textbooks everywhere with our weak, pandemic-era arms, and we learned how to take real, consequential tests with daunting time constraints. (My undergraduate degree was in English and video production, so, you know, not a lot of formal test-taking in my past).

We dealt with immature friends and intimidating classmates. We routinely commiserated about feeling “small” in our foreign surroundings — she walked the halls alongside hulking, mustachioed eighth graders, and I went to school alongside people nearly half my age.

Every now and then, my daughter and I would fight about who had it harder.

Me: “Mine is much harder! Look at the words in this textbook! It’s nonsense!”

Her: “They made me run a mile in gym today! A MILE!”

Fine. She wins.

Several weeks before I even reached finals this semester, I wanted to crawl into a dark pit and hide forever. I got four years of the “under” part of graduate school already… anything more really seems like a scam. I’ll be a full-time writer again. The news business is thriving! I went through so much (expletive deleted) this semester, I’ve got plenty of material to fill some column space.

Despite these feelings (and the fear of wasting ALL that tuition money), I powered through the rest of the semester, delivered a massive final paper, and took three exhausting exams. I even missed watching a few Minnesota Twins baseball games during that stretch!

I came home Tuesday, after what I thought was my last final, and plugged my computer back into its port in the home office. My calendar buzzed.

“Diagnostic semester exam. 9 a.m. Thursday.”

Expletive deleted. Expletive deleted. Expletive deleted.

I kept ignoring the thought of this for so long, I basically forgot about it.

While not exactly a final exam, this diagnostic test required three hours of my time. Miss it and fail the class. It isn’t even a “graded” exam, but rather an assessment covering the entire year of classes for the administration to assess their own performance. 125 multiple choice questions across six diverse topics, all mixed together.

You want to know another way the administration can gauge our performance? Our grades. Look at all the students’ grades.

I told my daughter about my situation, and, of course, she understood the pain.

Her: “We just had to do this same thing! State testing or whatever! Just look at my grades to see how I’m doing, why do I have to take a long, pointless test?”

Me: “EXACTLY!”

Me and Her: (Expletive deleted)!

(My daughter used the word “stupid,” which is a very naughty word according to my kindergartener.)

But my middle schooler had my back.

Her: “So just to clarify, it doesn’t matter what score you get on it? And you don’t have to study for it?”

Me: “No, but I can’t just mark Answer C down the page. I have to sit there for the time period and make a good show of it.”

Her: “Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. No problem. Just do what I did. Read the question. Look at the answers. If it’s a bunch of nonsense, mark D and move along.”

Me: “Yeah! OK!”

Her: “They can’t MAKE you read it more than once!”

Me: “You’re right! They can’t!”

Her: “And if you get a bad score, so what? It just looks bad for them!”

Me: “YEAH! Makes them look real bad!”

Her: “YEAH!”

Me: “(Expletive deleted) YEAH!”

Her: “Dad, STOP SWEARING!”

I don’t know if I swore that much. But probably. Look, it’s been a long year. I don’t know where I’d be without my middle schooler’s sage advice. I owe a lot of money to the swear jar though.

• • •

Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 5-11. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.