Those tests you took (or probably are taking) are something you will never be excited about. You might feel confident but you have to admit you’re not having fun with it.

Your first experience was probably from those spelling tests you took starting in first grade. Feeling the pain of having to memorize for the first time as a child is not fun. As a child, all that was on your mind was the pizza you had in your lunch box or what video games you were going to play that Friday, not how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Looking back, those tests weren’t that bad but as a child, they made you want to rip your brains out. If you got a high or perfect score, then you would just shrug it off. If you didn’t do so well, then it felt heartbreaking. Kids know that they learn from failure, but seeing that mark always felt sour.

(Bruce Washburn / Flickr)

Later on, you probably started taking math drills. Those felt like you were running through a war zone. Tests are already timed for the most part but having to do fifty to one hundred questions in a short period of time (maybe five minutes tops) made you want to rip your hands out. You were either the person to race against the clock and didn’t care too much about what answer you wrote down, or you were the person that had to write the right answer, even if it meant you couldn’t finish the drill. While you might’ve hated those then, at least they made you able to do basic math fast enough that it doesn’t take six minutes to figure out what 67 + 45 was. Once you stop doing math every day (like me for example) your ability to do math quickly starts fading away.

Science and social studies were probably the first ones where you had to really memorize everything. As a child, you probably didn’t have good study habits yet and were just reading the material constantly. Admittedly, this is still what I do at times but I get better luck these days. Science tests start as early as third grade and they’re not fun. Sure, they might be easy today because you know basic-level stuff, but as a kid who might be brand new to the content, it can be overwhelming. It all came down to how interested you were in the material. For example, I was never into biology. If there was anything on the human body or chromosomes or RNA, I would probably crash. I was only good at science for two months and that was about it. The last science test was in twelfth-grade Biology where I suffered through the first quiz of the semester. I dropped the class after that which thankfully wasn’t a huge deal because I already met the science requirements for graduation. Social studies were something I was a lot more consistent at. I cared more about life around the world than what is the powerhouse of the cell. I was consistently putting out As and Bs during social studies to the point where it became one of my favourite subjects. I did stop caring for the class over time but once tests weren’t part of the social studies classes I was taking, it became fun again.

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Second language tests were always tough because it felt like spelling on steroids. Instead of having to spell words that will become a part of your everyday language, now you have to remember a language you don’t use with anyone outside of class. French is easily one of the harder ones to do especially with silent letters. I took Spanish starting in ninth grade and it was easy for the most part. The tests were alright save for one section. That section was the listening portion and sometimes I wouldn’t be able to catch a single word. That was always a nightmare because once the teacher stopped playing the tape, you were done and couldn’t go back and check.

The types of questions can affect the test in significant ways. The ones where you had to answer in complete sentences were either not that bad or giving you anxiety. If you know the material, it won’t be that bad. If you had no idea what was going on, your mind will go blank and you’ll be making your best guess. You will either get some marks or no marks. Next is multiple choice. These ones are a bit more tolerable because you can at least visualize what the answer is. Sometimes the answer will stick out like a sore thumb, other times you will be confused over which one is the imposter. You’ve probably been in a situation where you went “When in doubt, the answer is C.” I may have done this one multiple times and sometimes it works. However, you might also be in a situation where you pick the same letter multiple times in a row and you start to doubt one of those answers. You probably went back and pick a different answer only to find out later you were actually correct but you let your doubts get the best of you.

(Eric Biederbeck / Flickr)

Then there are big standardized tests. I only ever had to take one which was a numeracy test back in tenth grade. I was not prepared for any of the questions on that test. Nothing that I learned in math over the last how many years was applicable. I never even got to see my mark in the end which was frustrating (then again I may have just been checking the wrong place).

Tests are going to exist for a long time. The one flaw in all of these tests is that they are pretty much there to test your memorization skills rather than see if you understand the concept. Unfortunately, there aren’t better ways to design these tests which means they’ll probably stay the same for a while. Maybe one day they’ll be abolished.