All These Exams.

Just because of boredom and too much free time, today I will dig a bit in memory. And share a list of the weirdest exams I ever had. I was studying extensively in Warsaw, where I was going through three Master’s programs at a time.

Throughout my studies, I experienced a lot of less and more painful exams. Some were funny, some were nerve-wracking. I think the fact that I had such a long list of exams and qualifications to take, might play a positive role in my general stress resilience.

According to Seery, Holman and Silver (2010), people with a history of some, but not overwhelming, adversity report better mental health and well-being over time. This holds when compared with people with either very little or very high adversity. So, the list of most weird exams is as follows:

[1] What Happened When I Took the Exam to Mensa, the High-IQ Society?

At some point in high school, I came up with the great idea to join the Mensa association. I hoped to find interesting and inspiring new friends there.

My dreams were shuttered instantly, when I just entered the exam. And the chairman of Mensa appeared on the scene to welcome us before the test.

‘I personally think that recruitment tests are way too simple, every idiot can pass’ – he said. –

‘But unfortunately, these are the rules and we have to let you in any way, so good luck. I never made any friends in Mensa somehow. 

[2] Exam to the primary school.

When your parents in Poland are willing to send you to school as a six-year-old and not a seven-year-old, you need to pass a special test. According to Bedard and Dhuey (2006), the youngest children in a school cohort score measurably lower for years afterwards. My parents were intending to do this, therefore I had to get a professional evaluation of my learning capabilities at the age of five.

The exam was a five hours (!) long, one-to-one test with an experimenter. And she did not let me out for a break even though I had a fever on that day. That was probably the hardest exam I ever passed, just because it was hard at so many levels at a time.

To be honest, everything else was more or less simple to pass ever since. According to Rutter (2012), a difficult but survivable early challenge can produce a genuine ‘steeling effect’. This leaves someone better equipped to handle comparable stress later on.

[3] What Do You Say When Asked ‘What Is Sex?’ in an Oral Exam?

Sexology was just one of the regular courses at the Faculty of Psychology at the time I was studying in Warsaw. Nothing special, really: for most of the time, we were memorising long textbook lists of fetishisms and deviations known in the medical literature.

There are thousands of these. The whole course was quite boring, except for the exam. So, the big day finally has come.

There were around 70 students in the course, but the exam was oral and took just one afternoon in total. So, all students, almost all girls, were going into the professor’s office one by one. They stayed inside for around three minutes, and came out with the best grade in their index, and completely red on their faces.

‘Damn, what is happening here?’ – I thought in terror.

Then my turn has come, and I had no choice but to enter the room. I was stressed and embarrassed, but the professor was just sitting behind his desk and smiling politely.

According to von der Embse, Jester, Roy and Post (2018), test anxiety reliably lowers performance when the stakes feel high. ‘I will ask you just one question, the same as I ask everybody else’ – so he said.

– ‘What is sex?’ Of course, once you have armoured yourself with a detailed knowledge of the biological underpinnings of transsexualism or a long list of crime-generating dangerous deviations, that question is like a kick between the eyes.

I think I left the room with the same red on my face as anybody else, and with the same grade.

[4] What Went Wrong With My Driving License Exam?

The driving License industry is highly bribed in Poland. Well, I never paid the bribe, so I got blacklisted and had a hard time trying to pass.

In Poland, you need to pass theoretical tests, then some tests on the parking, and then, after you have that done, you can go downtown with the examiner sitting next to you. That person is the one who usually expects the bribe. 

One of the examiners was particularly pissed at the lack of an envelope in my hands.

I not only failed the test for nothing. When he took over the driving wheel, he went through a roundabout straight ahead, through the grass and the flowers on the way back to the office. What a moron.