The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

I have a cousin who lives in a big city. There, she tells me, finals are heavily- standardized tests that take place outside the classroom and are so brain-draining that days are given off from school for the purpose of the post-finals mental recupera- tion of the student body.

Here in Waitsburg of course, finals are simply unusually long tests given on the last two days of each semester. (A few super-orga- nized teachers do a quarterly final as well.)

And far from being stan- dardized exams, Waitsburg finals take on a number of guises. If they exist at all, that is.

For example, first-period Band doesn't have a regular final. Human Development, my second-period class, might have had one but for an unfortunate twist of fate that apparently resulted in grievous injury to the teach- er's leg (get well soon, Mrs. Bickelhaupt!), which in turn resulted in the cancellation of the final.

Third-period English, however, did have a final: a comprehension test on a book that we fairly inhaled in our rush to finish before the end of the semester. Grr. I forgot one stinking quote out of a thirty-pagein one-night assignment and I think the teacher's gonna dock me for it.

Fourth period (AP En- vironmental Science) had a classic final. Seven pages, printed on both sides. Ninety - that is not a typo - multiple choice questions using college-level vocabulary and those endlessly confusing instructions test writers just love. Oh yeah, and five essay questions.

Normally, when a test says 'essay', they mean a paragraph. Usually, I can squeeze all the information I need to convey on these questions into the provided space, with some transitions and restatement thrown in for easier reading. However, it is very hard to define de- mographic change, list its four stages, describe each stage individually along with its implications on popula- tion growth and its impor- tance in ethnobiological applications, and describe whether traditional demographic change is applicable in all situations, all within a space about two inches high. It took fifteen minutes and the entire space of an additional piece of paper to finish that particular question.

The lucky folks who elected to be in Ag Metals during this hour were graded on their ability to toast marshmallows with welding tools.

Fifth period's final was a relatively skimpy review test. (Hey, anything's rela- tively skimpy compared to ninety-five AP questions.) However, this class (Foren- sic Science) also involved a hefty end-of-term project: Students, working together in groups, were to write a mystery story.

"You don't have to write the Great American Novel," the teacher reminded us.

I heard two words: "Write" and "Novel".

Unfortunately for the poor people in my group, I was in charge of the rough draft.

Finally, after a lot of mid- night oil burned and a close shave with the deadline, the seventeen-paged (typed) 'Forever Hold Your Peace' is finished. Pant. Wheeze. Sigh.

Ah, well, I won't have to worry about all this again until June.