COLUMN: "Emotional Testing Service"

Picture yourself in the world of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Imagine walking around the dank and dismal Chicago stockyards, surrounded by the nervous mooing of the cattle being led to the killing field, the grunts of men working twelve hour shifts who never have the time or money to do anything fun in life, and the dark shadows of the slaughter houses with their foul stench of death. Above it all, one thing, one emotion, one feeling stands out - The smell of fear. Can you imagine it? If so, you have just experienced what it is like to take the LSAT. Yes, I am a survivor. On a recent Monday afternoon I too joined the many who have taken the Last Stupid Admission Test and made it out alive and with my sanity intact. I have to be honest. I have never been one to get too excited about these standardized tests. I have never taken any kind of prep course and the night before my SAT I stayed up to 1 a.m. watching the Red Sox lose in extra innings. During that little bit of high school hell I viewed in fascination as normally sane and intelligent people turned into quivering blobs of jelly because they belived their life was on the line. I also experienced, for what I thought was the last time, the utter paranoia of the Educational Testing Service. After it was over I thought I'd seen it all as far as test taking goes, but nothing prepared me for the LSAT. I woke up the morning of the test actually happy that I had to take it. Before you pass me off as being out of my mind realize that it meant I didn't have to go to work all day. I actually had a three day weekend and it felt good until I reminded myself that I wasn't getting paid either. Since I make about $50 per day I figured that for the privilage of subjecting myself to institutional tourture I was essentially shelling out $120 including the testing fee. To this end I would like to extend my everlasting gratitude to the ETS for scheduling their summer test date on a Monday rather than a Saturday. I'm sure whoever was responsible for that decision must have been a banker in a previous life. When I arrived at the testing sight, the luxurious Wharton school, (I felt so honored just to be let in the door without a Wharton sticker affixed to my PENNcard that I almost searched out Dean Gerrity's office so I could kiss his feet and bless him for allowing one so unworthy to enter the sacred halls. Fortunately I came to my senses.) Anyhow, once inside, I encountered the most uptight group of people I had ever seen in my life. People watching the beginning of the Gulf War on TV were more relaxed. Hell, I've seen finance majors at the resume drop more relaxed than this bunch was. After finding out the proper room to be in, I took a seat and looked around. I didn't really know anyone there since the majority were students from other schools so I just observed the goings-on. The goings-on consisted of people nervously twiddling their thumbs and playing with their hair - the usual signs of nervousness except you could have cut the tension with a stick of butter. Then the comedy began. I have often wondered why the Educational Testing Service takes itself so seriously. I used to believe it was because the tests were so important that super-secret precautions were necessary to prevent anyone from cheating and therefore the ETS was justified in doing Gestapo imitations. Of course I also used to believe that colleges actually chose their student bodies primarily on academic merit but hey, we all have our childhood fantasies. Anyway, after observing the mental state of most of the people in that testing room I don't possibly see how anybody could think that the test results will actually tell them anything about any particular individual except how neatly they can fill in little ovals while envisioning a a future flipping burgers at McDeath. My new theory about the ETS involves inertia. You see, like other huge, bloated, unproductive buracracies the ETS takes itself so seriously because that is the only way it can justify its exsistance to itself. It may have started out with good intentions but it got lost somewhere along the way and only its forward momentum keeps it going. Examples of such worthless but self-important organizations abound - the CIA, Bush/Quayle'92, the Undergraduate Assembly, the Regional Science department etc. Any outside person with no political baggage would be able to look at ETS for the perposterous joke it is. Yet, it exists and it rules students lives, and so I found myself being fingerprinted so that I could take a five hour test which reminded me of Games Magazine and which was supposed to tell law school admissions officers what kind of lawyer I will become after three years at their institution. Naturally the preliminaries for the test took almost as long as the test itself and by the time everyone was through being treated like an accused criminal it seemed like it was time to eat dinner. Fortunately we had a nice procter. She realized the pressure that everyone was feeling and she informed us that she would not enforce the food and drink ban proscribed by the ETS guardians, but only if "none of you object, because if someone does I'll have to enforce it because I can't have anyone complaining that I bent the rules," (No! not that!) "Now, does anyone object?" I truly would have loved to see the stares of hatred that would have been directed at anyone who objected. Can you imagine that? "Yes Maam, I object. The sounds of people slurping sodas will distract me from the grave task at hand. I insist that you follow the rules and... Ow!!! Hey! Who threw the shoe at me!" Unfortunately nobody did. I suppose most people, like myself, either had food and weren't going to follow the rules anyway or they were so freaked out that their brains were in another dimension. Once the test got started time flew by. The highlight came at the end when it was time for the writing sample. We all received official Law School Admission Test pens to write with! and we got to keep them! I felt so special. We didn't even have to share them! And to think, it only cost $70. I know I will treasure mine forever. After the test was over did everyone go home and grab a brew? No, everyone stood in the hallway and talked about the test. In fact, when the other room got out before us they did this too and very generously included me in their multiple conversations right outside the door. Personally I just went and got a cheesesteak. All of these standardized tests with the little circles should just be abolished. They don't prove a damn thing and their only function is too make the ETS and the prep course people rich. If the educational establishment of this country really wants to test its students they ought to take a cue form the rest of the civilized world and institute mandatory exams which actually test students' knowledge rather than their alleged ability - or maybe the educational establishment is just afraid that the country will use the tests to judge them and not their students. Can you spell potato?

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