Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 4

Evan Kalikow 10/10/08 Engl 030 Section 8 Personal Narrative PSAT: Annihilator of Humankind I never did care much

h for standardized tests, but I never thought they could destroy my humanity. Sure, we all know theyre more annoying and painful than having an hour-long conversation with Carrot Top, Pauly Shore, and Carlos Mencia, but dehumanizing? That seems to be crossing the line just a little bit. But alas, it is true in some cases. Now I hate when people use the word literally when they mean to say figuratively (seriously, you literally ate yourself to death? I find that highly unlikely), but a certain notorious standardized test made me literally lose my identity for a brief period of time. It was a bright October morning during eleventh grade at an hour so early that farmers were still asleep. The PSATs were to be distributed that morning, much to the students groans, which seemed as harmonious as the chanting of Gregorian monks. I, for one, had studied immensely for the test, taking practice tests and buffing up on vocabulary. Although this was not quite as important as the actual SATs, the PSATs could qualify the most elite of students for the National Merit Scholarship, effectively making them more appealing to schools and giving them more money than the GDP of some African nations. Thus, I was not alone in my strenuous studying. I took the test, feeling very confident in myself. Jump to three months later. I sat in my English class with the rest of my classmates. One of the guidance counselors was there, and he notified us that the PSAT score reports were officially in. He began to pass them out. As I saw my fellow classmates get their scores, I was reminded of the opening scene in Spielbergs Saving Private Ryan where all of the allied soldiers

were being shot down like flies. It was quite disheartening, to say the least. The counselor finally gave me my score. My eyes darted straight to the score report. I got a 212 out of a possible 240 points. Ninety ninth percentile. Hot damn!, I thought, thats enough to qualify for National Merit! I basked in my own glory for quite some time. Inside of my head, all of my brain cells were holding a parade that would dwarf the Macys Thanksgiving Parade. I had surpassed cloud nine. I now knew what Siddhartha Gautama felt like when he reached true enlightenment. Reading over the score report paper, I thought to myself, this is great news! I cant wait to tell everyone that Evan Kalikox could be a National Merit Scholar! Wait a minute. Kalikox? As you can tell from looking at the top of this paper, my last name is definitely not Kalikox. It is Kalikow, just one letter shy of Kalikox. I read over the paper a dozen times to confirm that what I was seeing was true. Alas, my worst fears were confirmed. I had won the war, but lost the easiest battle. I was a National Merit Scholar who could not spell his own name. Like a kid simultaneously getting hit in the face with a pie, getting his pants pulled down, peeing his pants, pooping his pants, and calling his teacher Mommy, I was embarrassed. I raised my hand nervously and asked the guidance counselor, Lets say you spelled your name wrong. Would one need to do anything to fix it? No, he said confidently. Phew. Dodged another bullet. Unless your score is high enough to qualify for National Merit. Then youve got some work to do. Now I felt like an idiot.

That following night, I came home to my mom and dad, who were eagerly awaiting the news of my test results. They gathered around me as if they were the Los Angeles Police and I was Rodney King, ready to attack me at the slightest indiscretion. I was pleased to report to them my exemplary performance on the test, but then notified them that it was not me who achieved the feat, but rather a mysterious, nonexistent Evan Kalikox. They laughed at me, not with me (they made this very clear to me). Then I went straight to my room to settle the issue. I had to send more emails than a grandmother discovering the internet and forwarding touching chainmail or political propaganda to her grandchildren. I suffered through the bureaucratic chain of commands of Collegeboard (the distributors and sole owners of the PSAT), recalling memories of reading about the unnecessarily long bureaucracies of the USSR. Finally, I received a straight and definite answer as to the status of my test from one of the Collegeboard underlings: Your name correction request has been submitted and is pending approval. It should take about seven days to clear. Finally, I was home free. My scores would be attributed to me and all would be well. But during that seven day period, I began to realize that for this next week, I would have no identity. As far as Collegeboard was concerned, my last name could be Kalikow or Kalikox or even Cosby. By messing up my name on this test, I had become The Man with No Name, the character Clint Eastwood famously portrayed in a series of westerns in the 1960s. Only my closest friends and most nefarious enemies knew who I really was. To Collegeboard, I was just a series of bubbles on a light blue Scantron sheet. This depressing thought pattern allowed me to have an epiphany: These standardized tests that we are forced to take are stripping us of our humanity. I was quite prepared for the test. I knew every mathematical formula inside and out, could list every grammatical rule, and had a

vocabulary so strong that it would make Mike Tyson blush. However, with all of this preparation for complex concepts and problems, I had forgotten who I was, quite literally. I knew there were kids all across the country who had prepared just as hard, if not harder, for the test as I did, and it frightened me to think that people were cramming their heads full of equations and vocabulary so much that they forgot their identities and became automatons designed for the sole purpose of taking a single test. I did not sleep well that week. Seven days later, I received a confirmation email that Collegeboard now recognized the subject formerly known as Kalikox as Kalikow. My identity crisis was finally over. I was the laughing stock of my school for a long time, but I was also the laughing stock that was getting commended for his National Merit proficiency, so it all worked out in the end. The universe had properly aligned itself once again, and business as usual could continue. However, I never forgot the realization that I came to. Ones sense of humanity is of vital importance, and losing it could have dire consequences. Take the childrens television show SpongeBob Squarepants, for example. In one episode, the titular character needed to become a fancy waiter in a very short amount of time. Another character told him to forget everything he knew that was not related to fine dining. SpongeBob took this advice literally, and he became the greatest waiter that ever lived. One customer asked him for his name after such an exemplary performance, but, lo and behold, SpongeBob had forgotten who he was. He suffered a severe meltdown and destroyed the restaurant. I urge everyone, from young kids to aging seniors approaching their deathbeds at an exponential rate, to never get so caught up in something that your identity is compromised, because in the end, your identity is what makes you truly human.

Вам также может понравиться