Well Fine, Pop My Bubble Sheet

Can I just say what a cruel joke standarized tests are. Especially ones for English Teachers...

I had to roust myself at 6 am so I could drag my ass to the "TESTING CENTER OF DOOM" (ok I added that last part), to take my Praxis II exam. Three weeks ago I forked over $185 for the privilege of spending two hours questioning my every instinct with regards to the English language and literature and cursing my former teachers for not emphasising the allusion and adverbial clauses. I half expected the exam to be printed on a silk spun bubble sheet, or at least a helper monkey. BUT NO! They don't even give you a damn pencil with a spiffy ETS logo on it. What exactly am I paying for?

Content like this I guess...

Read the following passage and answer the following questions. Be sure to completely fill your answer on the answer sheet.

The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen
A Chapel was built in the midst
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves
And tomb-stones where flowers should be
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

In this poem is the author
A) Expressing himself/herself as an angst ridden hormonal teen
B) Deconstructing post-feminist rhetorical constraints
C) Gassy
D) Using heroic couplets

In line 7 what does the word "the" mean?
A) The world is going to end tomorrow
B) You are never going to pass this test
C) You really shouldn't have made fun of your 9th grade English teacher spending so much time on subject verb agreement
D) Run Away! Run Away!



I was pretty excited when they asked who wrote 1984, and also overjoyed that I recognized Langston Hughes and a passage from the Grapes of Wrath.

Honestly--is this what defines a good teacher?

I can spot iambic pentameter at 20 paces, but I am always a bit confused by hyperbole. Should I just give up this whole teaching game right now until I can successfully use gerunds in a participle clause?

The whole experience kind of makes you want to stab yourself with a number 2 soft lead pencil.