*This is a piece of satire*

With finals season upon us, I thought it would be a perfect time to reflect on the greatest resume builder for students: test taking. Every year about this time students are overjoyed to begin two weeks of constant reviewing and examination. Although winter break is less than a week away, teacher’s perfectly line up unit tests to stress you out just enough for the final to be the difference between an A and a C. I am glad my intelligence has always been based on how well I can test. I mean isn’t that what all adults do in the real world anyway? Who cares about knowing the difference between taxes and mortgages when I can recite the Quadratic formula to the tune of “Row Row Row Your Boat” on command. Just last week my mom was complaining about how when she was in school teachers were too focused on what you do in the “real world” and not on actual skills like comparing the French Revolution to the American one.

Testing teaches us plenty of things. For starters, you learn valuable skills like answering 75 multiple choice questions in 60 minutes. And how to not cough every second in a room full of 100 people so you don’t annoy everyone else who is trying to take the same test. Other benefits of test-taking includes budgeting all the money you will spend at St. Louis Bread Co. studying. Plus you are definitely learning information that will be used in whatever career path you take. I am sure every doctor will tell you how crucial it is to know the rules of one-point and two-point perspective. It’s a win-win.

However, some students claim to suffer from “test anxiety” insisting that tests are “too-overwhelming” or that standardized tests don’t “accurately represent their abilities.” I know, crazy right. I mean if there’s one thing you should take away from these evaluations, it’s that you can always retake it. Why stress about taking the ACT once when you can take it five times. That’s the benefit of testing, it always works out.

So enjoy this next week KHS. Revel in the fact that what you are doing now is going to prove incredibly vital to your success in life over the course of the next 20 years. Savor all the scantrons you fill out and make sure to appreciate your teachers for skipping all of those problems because it “won’t be on the test.” Because what’s the point of school if we aren’t tested on what we have learned?