So I had taken my placement test for my entry to the University of Wisconsin last Thursday and today went to visit a councilor to enroll for classes. As a computer programmer and dyslexic, I thought my test scores would be higher in math then in English. Instead, the complete opposite was true. I qualified for a higher English, but was placed at the lowest math. I've always been a poor test taker for as long as I've actually tried when taking tests One of my problem is, I am a programmer: we never get it right on the first try! Seriously though, I do struggle with taking tests even if I did pretty will with the material. In the 90 minutes that was allotted to me, I didn't even finish half the math test. I was fairly confident that the problems I did solve were correct. Clearly, however, this wasn't enough. So I asked if I could retake the placement test. Indeed, for an additional $25 a try, I could take the placement test as many times as I wished. This time I had a new strategy. I wasn't really completing the test any faster. But when I was done to 5 minutes left, I filled in random blanks for the remaining questions. For the remainder of the time, I would skim through the test, looking for questions I could answerer quickly and make changes to the answerer sheet. While my councilor didn't think this was a good idea, statistically speaking, the odds say my test score should improve my 10% just by completing the test. Sure enough, this time I skipped two levels from my original score and was granted the math class I wanted. (And I bet if I had a few more wackes at it, I could have debugged the whole test and scored perfect-- just like any programmer!)
Jordan of Mother Noose on base.
Jordan of Mother Noose on base.
