The CSET

Today (allegedly) at 5 p.m. I will get my scores from the CSET.

Did I ever tell you how the CSET went down last month?

I don't think I did.

It was a week before the wedding. I had been studying math up to my ears for two months. And you know what? I had learned a ton of stuff. Stuff that I will never have to teach a high school student, or even a college student for that matter, but stuff that is nonetheless on that blasted CSET.

I got super lucky and was assigned to the afternoon testing session, so I'd stayed up cramming late the night before, then slept in a bit, woke up for some more cramming, and had a delightful lunch Chris made me to get me going. (He's such a babe.) I packed up my water bottle and #2 pencils and went down the street to State.

The morning session was still going on, and I chatted with some people outside the doors. I realized very quickly that most people were taking it for the first time, and none of them had studied a lick. "I'm just going to wing it," one guy said. "I took a math class in college, so I'll be set."

Oh, poor fool.

I decided not to tell him that I had not known anyone who had passed on the first try, even with major studying. And that, in fact, it took my friend Aaron three tries. Why discourage people?

When we were let in and seated, the girl next to me started up a conversation. She was in an internship program where she and her friends, who were also in our room, were already teaching. I asked how her studying had gone. "I haven't studied. I figure I'll take it again if it's hard." I asked if she'd even looked at the sample test online. "Nope."

Seriously? How does a whole program of current teachers not bother checking out this expensive and crazy test before they sit down to take it. I decided not to talk to anyone else. It was too depressing.

When we got the test, the girl next to me swore under her breath. That's right, math teacher girl. Welcome to hell.

Unfortunately, the geometry test came out first. This was unfortunate, because in my two months of studying, I had really only had the time to study for the algebra portion. As we got closer to the test date, I decided to screw the geometry test and focus on algebra, and just work on geometry if it looked like I had a shot.

But geometry came out first, and I figured why not try? I was actually able to answer quite a few, either from actually knowing how to solve the problems, or by making methods up until I came out with an answer that was one of the options. (If the CSET truly is evil, they would have figured out these fake ways to approach the problem and purposely planted those answers to give me false hope. They are such jerks.)

I felt okay after the geometry, and I hadn't even studied for it. I figure there is a chance I pulled it off, but it'll come down to the questions I just had to guess on. Fingers crossed I'm a good guesser.

Then came out algebra, and I figured I was all set. I knew my stuff. I had gone through every inch of the guide and knew as much as I could keep in my head.

I opened it up and leafed through the pages. And almost cried. Those jerks.

I don't know how they did it, but they took all the math and manipulated it into unrecognizable problems. I had no idea what they were talking about on about 1/3 of the problems. I was extremely confident about another 1/3. And the last 1/3 took me awhile to figure out, but I did come up with answers from my choices. So.... I'm not feeling that one as much.

I came home and hugged Chris for a long time. Then we had pizza and coke and watched a movie

Anyway, so today's the day (possibly) I can find out the results. If all works out, I should be able to go to the CSET website's results page and log in to see my unofficial score. Which basically means, today is my last day to optimistically thing, hey, maybe I won't have to study my mind into insanity for the next month again.

Prayers and good wishes and crossed fingers will be appreciated today1