Preface: Although I intend to “blague bien” some might not find humor in this post, and I acknowledge that. I thought the whole experience was unique and tried my hardest to laugh at the situation as opposed to giving in to my instinctual feelings like desk-flipping, screaming, crying, or simply quitting and walking out. This “blague” is intended for those who are looking to take the GRE in the coming months here in Cameroon, and also for those who are exposed to the luxury of good-ol’ American efficiency on a daily basis. Alors, je vous donne un peu du courage, un peu plus de la bonne chance, et finalement, je vous en pris toujours.
As some readers may or may not know, I recently traveled to Yaoundé (with Joe Jatheway/Munga/Jathe-ro-tull) to take the much anticipated Graduate Record Examination (GRE). It was to be held at the American Language Center (ALC), Saturday February 21, 2009. Joe and I arrived in Yaoundé a couple of days before the test to relax and study as much as possible when either one of us had the motivation to do so. There were a couple of other volunteer’s there taking the test as well.
So, test day arrives and our sheets that were given at the point of registration told test takers to be at the ALC no later than 8:30am with four pencils (No. 2 sans doute), registration sheet, and a picture ID. We all successfully entered into the classroom with me and Joe J.M.J. in a room together, and the remaining volunteers in another room. There might have been five or six white people to maybe 60 Cameroonians taking the GRE that day. This is how the difficulties came to be…
The lack of structure and overall lack of testing etiquette that was present throughout the hours of 8:30am until the test was over at just after 1pm was unbelievable at times.
As we begun the test (which was just after 8:30am), many of the Cameroonians taking the test were confused at the format of filling out things such as name, test number, mailing address, etc. From signing the back of the test sheet, to the writing sheet’s simple requested information, it took us an hour and a half to begin the test. Granted not everyone is as assimilated to standardized tests as us Amuricans…but FUCK. The formateur would explain that if an individual didn’t have a mailing address, use the ALC and scores will be sent there. Questions then came in fashions of, “What is the ALC zip code?” “Where do I find the test number?” When, in fact, we just went over where and how to find all the numbers and appropriate information for a sufficient answer sheet…not to mention everything was written on the board in front of us. This took an hour and a half, when finally the formateur said enough is enough and if you unable to figure it out, too bad, we are moving on, avec toi ou sans toi. There was even a point when he asked everyone if they were graduates, in which a chick actually raised her hand.
The testing clock was small and far away which was hard to see from my point of view (which was a seat or two in front of the back wall) and was truly difficult to estimate how much time I had remaining. As we finally begun the test (around 10am), within the first five minutes of the “Choose an Issue” writing exam, the formateur told me (this is while testing is going on) to fill in the topic I had chosen, when in fact, I was still in the process of selecting my topic. I still felt that I delivered a strong issue topic argument…but who does that? Throughout the two verbal and quantitative sections, people would ask questions (this is while testing is going on and after the formateur said specifically that if you have questions throughout the course of the test, he is not able to answer to ANYONE and all he would say during each section is when there were five minutes remaining in the test), and the formateur would answer to them, which disrupted many other test takers, myself and Joe included. What’s more is that the formateur failed to call “five minutes” when there were indeed, five minutes left in testing. Throughout the six sections he would sometimes give a 10 minute heads-up, a 20 minute one, a five minute or two, and one awesome 3 minute warning that forced me to cringe since I had 9 questions left. I also know that they had arranged some of seats in the room in places that didn’t permit them to see the clock at all, unless they got out of their seat and looked. Sadly, one of these seats happened to be Joe’s.
During our 10 minute break, some people didn’t understand that it was their own responsibility to get back into the classroom before the 10 minutes was over to continue testing, so the formateur waited for these people. As the other woman distributing the other classroom’s test found out about this, she came in and began our test disregarding the people who were still taking their own break as she should.
The formateur almost forgot about the last section (section 4) which would have been awesome if someone didn’t speak up. After the test, the formateur had to read a claim from the ETS/GRE people for people who wanted to dismiss their scores which brought about many a scoffs from other Cameroonians…reasons that I am unsure of, but I definitely thought about trashing my scores if the test hadn’t cost $170.
I am now in the process of informing ETS/GRE of their sub-standard testing conditions that were present on the day of 2/21/09…a day that will live with me forever.
Ce n’est pas une blague…
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