The Test

This was it. The AP World History test. Eight months of study (really three days of cramming) led up to this moment. Outside our school library on a chilly Thursday morning, I held a piece of paper in my hand listing major civilizations, technological improvements, and events by time period which I studied frantically, as if trying to condense all of human history into a tiny, easy-to-swallow pill of knowledge. An impossible task.

Around me, other students discussed. The more prepared students (or the students that didn't really care about the test, it wasn't easy to tell which) talked about games, or television, or anything else unrelated to the test. The more unprepared, worried students asked questions about history.

"What was the Meiji Restoration?" a male student asked, and the facts ran through my head. Japanese period, after Tokugawa, movement away from imperialism for Japan.

"What was the importance of the Suez Canal?" Suez Canal, allowed European trade with Asia without having to round Africa, the building of which caused Egypt to fall under British rule.

"Who was Mussolini?" I laughed. He's definitely gonna get a 5.

A voice from the library. It was one of our proctors. She beckoned us to group closer together and went through the basic things we needed for the test. Pencils, pens, an ID card. Check, check, check.

Finally, the gates of hell opened and against all reason, against all logic, the students started flooding in. Even worse, we all actually paid 80 dollars for three hours of hellish torture. Some lucky ones managed to get by with just a five dollar admission, but whether or not they should be considered lucky is debatable. After all, they still paid money to have their mind decimated.

The line to enter slowly diminished with each passing minute, but each passing minute felt like a decade. One by one, person after person entered the library, like sheep in line for the slaughterhouse, until finally, I entered.

"Michael... You're number 50." I was no longer referred to by name, but rather by table number. Was this an AP test or the Holocaust? Or was there any difference?

I made my way to my execution chamber and sat down on my electrical chair, nervousness running through my veins as I drowned in the atmosphere of worry, dense in the room. Second after passing second, I waited for the proctor to throw the switch and destroy me until finally, after months of waiting, the switch was flipped and the electricity surged through my body in the form of a multiple choice test, frying the think-circuits in my brain for 55 long minutes.

At long last, the break period came. Salvation from the textual abuse. All around, I heard people's opinions on the multiple choice.

"Too much reading." I agreed.

"I didn't finish, I had like 15 problems blank." Phew. At least I finished the entire test.

"I thought it was pretty easy." I swore I would find and kill the person that said that. Wait, wasn't that the guy that asked who Mussolini was?

And before I knew it, the break time flew by, barely a break, more like a period of interrogation between torture, trying to draw historical details from my mind. But I didn't say anything, not because I didn't want to tell, but because I couldn't. I was an uninformed civilian mistakenly captured, mistakenly thought to know information. And soon, my captives would realize this and execute me with documents and free-response questions.

I sat back to my desk. And for the next two hours, my brain dribbled false information onto page after page of lined paper. I knew I was doomed, but I didn't care. I just wanted the pain to end. Death from mental overexhaustion or release from the test, I didn't care which.

The latter came first, after two long, uncertain hours. At long last, the mental war was over. I was free.

The shackles of the college board were unlocked. I stepped out of the educational gulag and back into the real world.

I fell to my knees and kissed the concrete earth, thankful to be alive even though I've lost so much.




Author's Note: Sorry about being so late on this! I was just swamped with AP World cramming, and I unfortunately had to neglect my beloved blog for two weeks. But not to worry, I'm back, and bigger than ever.

Focused more on exaggeration and extended metaphors here to describe the merry, merry times I've had during the second AP test of my high school career.

Wrote this entirely from the backseat of my parents' car on the way to San Francisco in about three hours. Got a bit nauseous midway through, so I might not have caught some of the iPhone's awful, awful autocorrects, so if you notice anything off about the story, let me know!

And we'll be back to normal schedule this week, meaning next story's going to be published on Wednesday again!