It's All in the Test Taking

All names have been changed to protect the innocent.

If you want to know how someone's mind works, watch them take a vocabulary test.

Luke writes on the desk so hard that his pencil leaves a symphony of tick-tacking sound. His brow is furrowed. Every once in a while he will bang his head quietly on the desk.

Steve is also tense, so bothered by Luke's loud writing that he turns to glare at him. His breathing is fast, in tempo with his own pencil, which is shaking in his hand from intense concentration. He is the last to turn his test in, after having checked it over more than once.

Even with a cold, Leslie's face is serene and calm. Her breathing is soft and steady. She is the first to ask for clarification. She bunches her kleenex in neat little piles.

David is focused and thoughtful as he surveys the page. He is one of a few students who actually looks through the entire test before he starts it. I can see the same energy that he uses when stooping down to measure a putt on the golf course, careful, yet decisive.

Cindy's right leg shakes a mile a minute, bursting with the energy she uses on the field during a game.

Donald comments about losing his assignment sheet and that "he wouldn't have known the test was today if not for Facebook". He finishes in 20 minutes flat.

Suzy, as in class sometimes, works furiously and then, for a good five minutes straight, is distracted by her peeling fingernail polish.

No mystery here. The vocabulary test reveals all.