The Mother of All Exams or I Type Too Fast

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Well, I finished my last National Board test today. It was a painfully long essay exam that basically grilled my knowledge of art and art history. I was truckin along just fine until the question about Japanese Ceramics. Yeah…that one I had to kind of work around because it’s not exactly an area I’ve studied too much. Now that I’ve researched it using my friend the Internet, I feel that my answer was pretty lame. Other than that, I think the exam went well. The other artists and works of art were all somewhat obscure, but ones that I knew a lot about. So, now I just have to wait until November to see if I passed or not. Stupid waiting.
Before I could take the test I had to take a 15 minute tutorial (it was supposed to be 30 minutes, but I whipped right through it because I’m so smart). It taught me important things like how to press the “Enter” key, how to use a “mouse” to click on “buttons”, how to use a “window”, how to “cut and paste”, how to go on to the next screen, and how to use the computer’s basic calculator (even though I was taking an ART test). I’m glad I learned these very important skills, I’m sure I will use them for the rest of my life.
Oh, and I also had to get spoken to from the test administrators. Turns out that two other people complained that I “type too fast.” It was apparently distracting other people from taking their tests. Being in a room full of people on crappy Dell computers with blinky flourescent lighting apparently was the least of their concerns…those poor souls had to sit next to me and I type SO DARN FAST! I know, I’m so inconsiderate. The lady came and tapped me on the shoulder (half way through a really good rant I was writing on the links between Feminism and Impressionism) and said, “Excuse me, could you type more slowly?”
I was like, “What? This is a TIMED ESSAY exam.”
She said, “I realize that ma’m, but people are complaining that you type too fast.”
I looked at my computer as it was ticking down the final five minutes I had on a partially completed essay response. Realizing that I didn’t have time to stop and discuss my insanely fast typing (which, by the way, under any other circumstances would be something to brag about). I turned to her and said, “I only type as fast as I think.” Then turned back and continued working on my test.
I felt kind of bad because I knew the lady next to me was one of the ones who complained. She came back from her break and continued listenting to my lightning-speed typing (which I did try to soften as much as I could without sacrificing my response time) with a series of repeated sighs and whatnot. I figured that I had three choices: 1) Continue on typing as fast and as loud as I want fully concentrating on my responses, 2) Appease the folks and type slowly but possibly sacrifice my test score, or 3) Type even faster to get done with the test and get out of there before jealous-slow-typing-complaint-lady, lest she assault me in the parking lot. I chose option number three and finished the test in record time. My essays fit all of the word counts and all that. Overall, I feel that I did rockin on the test (except on the Japanese question…whew!).

7 thoughts on “The Mother of All Exams or I Type Too Fast”

  2. I measured the kinetic energy of that typing to exceed 1.21 jigawatts. In fact, I read this post on Monday.
    But yay for big tests being done.

  4. I wonder if the police will mail me a ticket with a photograph of me typing too fast. Caught in the act! People could have been hurt!

  5. *wipes eyes* Whew, the blog entry was good just to read the comments (and the entry itself was great, don’t get me wrong). Hehe, I think I scared Jessica’s neighbors with my belly laughs.
    On that random note, I find I have to hold in my laughter when watching a movie with Jess. She usually has her head on my chest or stomach, and they tend to move a lot when I laugh. Guess I really get going, eh?
    As for your problem Steph, lol. How would your typing any slower help the problem? She seems to be distracted more by the noise than anything else, and it isn’t your fault if the keyboards are so loud. It reminds me of high school though. People would ask if I would do a little worse on tests in my History class, as the teacher graded on a curve. Ha! What, I’m going to get a lower grade to save your sorry, I can’t read the 2 page homework, butt? No thank you (heck, and the teacher often threw my score out, so I’d get an A+ on most of my tests)!
    Lastly, you’re done! Way to do all that work Steph, you rock!

  6. “crappy Dell computers” YEEEAHHH HP ALL THE WAY! glad your test went pretty well. so funny that not one, but two people actually complained that you typed too fast, not too LOUD, but too FAST. so would anyone complain if youre typing was too SLOW?!?!? hmmm, i think their problem must have been more deeply rooted, in that they probably were getting stressed that YOU were getting the exam and jamming through it and it intimidated them, its funny that they expressed it as a speed of typing isseue. And can you imagine the test facilitator actually acting on their complaint “Um, ma’am, can you please type slower, you are clearly in violation of our typing speed limits……” ;-)