Finals week and I am tired!

On Thursday I took an online final that was a mere 35 questions long. Fortunately I knew my way through the content and got an A (94.5 %) on that particular test. This weekend I have another one to take and on this content, I am not so self-assured. I’d settle for a C, just to get it over with!

Why do tests make us crazy? I know I’m not alone in this. Some folks have test anxiety so severe that they actually need medication to simply get through an exam. I’m not anxious, I just don’t like taking tests – and, maybe I’m just old, because now that most tests are electronic, I feel a little more handicapped when taking them.

I have two or perhaps three certification exams looming in my future and in today’s world those tests are all online as well. You generally have to go to a testing center to have the privilege of sitting for them (after you pay several hundred dollars) and they are timed by a proctor. The first one comes up this spring and I am not looking forward to it. The second one will occur when I complete my coursework for the Family Nurse Practitioner certification. Hopefully, that will be in the summer of 2010. Then, if I have any endurance left in me, I am considering the pursuit of a Child/Family Psychiatric Mental Health NP certification (this could take another 2 years), so I don’t expect the test will be on my calendar until 2012. Maybe if I spread them out (one every 2 years or so) they won’t seem so overwhelming!

Life is full of tests. Most of them don’t occur online, however. They happen when you make a presentation at work and everyone is judging your project, examining your worth to the organization and either feeling very supportive and proud to have you as their colleague or jealous as hell if you did a good job! Other tests are more subtle –

• What did you do with that Christmas gift Aunt Catherine sent you (you know, the one you hated!)? Because, after all, she is coming for New Year’s dinner!
• Where did you put your copies of those trip receipts you’d never thought you’d need? Well you need them now, because there was a small fire in the accounting department and all the work in Cynthia’s in-basket (your expense report included) is in ashes!
• “How old are you grandma?” seems like an innocent enough question unless it is going into a report for school that notifies a whole portion of the disbelieving world that you are indeed over the age of “senior citizen” and deserving of a discount on nearly everything retail.

What tests are facing you? Will you worry that you look “fatter” when you see your friends and family over the holidays? Will you still be in love with the fellow you met at that conference last year, but haven’t seen (except in e-mail photos) in over 9 months? Will your Red Velvet Cake hold up to grandma’s standards at the holiday dinner you’re hosting this year?

We all have tests. My advice? Take a deep breath, give it your best effort, and realize, in a few years (maybe just weeks or months) no one will even care how you did on your test!