The GED experience

Once again, I'm sorry for the enormous gap between updates, but this one wasn't due solely to my ongoing inability to write. I was also busy preparing for the GED test. I don't typically write about events in my life, but I consider this particularly noteworthy, and it may be useful to others who intend to take the GED test.

Background

The GED test is for people who haven't completed high school, and certifies that the recipient has demonstrated skills at the level of a high school graduate. For some reason, many people find it difficult to believe I didn't finish high school, so here's a summary of my educational experience to date. After kindergarten, we moved to another town, and another elementary school. They gave me a series of placement tests, and decided the third grade would be more appropriate for me than the first grade. This meant I was perpetually around kids who were two years older than me, which made it difficult to relate to them. They regarded me as an anomaly, not an equal, and for this reason, I had very few friends. And even after being advanced two grades, I was still frustrated by the amount of non-educational, excessively repetitive busy work we were forced to do, so I often didn't do it. Much of the curricula was nearly identical to what we learned during the previous year, and I usually learned more by reading at home than I did at school. My grades throughout a given school year typically followed the same pattern: peaking at the beginning, then gradually declining as I grew weary of doing the same things over and over with no apparent benefit. Once I entered high school, this pattern severely worsened for several new reasons.

My first day of high school was the day before 9/11. Two days after 9/11, my mother's husband filed for divorce. He was extremely unpredictable, ill-tempered and outright dumb—he once asked me how to spell "salt". He made a habit of screaming at us for no apparent reason, punching holes in the walls, throwing things, then driving away and disappearing for a few days. And that was before the divorce. After the proceedings began, he still lived with us for 2.5 years, up until the day we lost our house because of his $100,000+ in credit card debt. Living in such a volatile environment while also dealing with the demands of high school distressed me to the point that I began experiencing frequent headaches. This led to numerous absences; at one point, I'd missed over 30 school days in a semester. Because of these absences, I fell behind in my schoolwork, and I nearly failed a few classes. Halfway through freshman year, my family and teachers had a series of discussions and decided the best course of action would be symptomatic treatment: prophylactic headache medication, and psychotherapy.

It wasn't effective, because it didn't address the root causes. This school simply wasn't a good place for me to learn^[1], and the situation at home only exacerbated my difficulties. At some point during all this, I entered a state where I felt almost no emotion. I'm not sure if it was some kind of attempt at self-preservation, but I cared about nothing, had little or no interest in school, and generally had no motivation to do anything. However, it's important to note that I didn't become reckless, engage in criminal or promiscuous behavior, drink, use drugs or disobey my parents. It seems like a lot of people in similar situations tend to do that. Instead, I merely withdrew into myself. My academic decline continued throughout sophomore year, and I failed several classes. After sophomore year, I had to attend summer school to make up one semester of English. Even after that, I was still very far behind, and my mother finally recognized that this was only going to get worse. Another series of discussions took place between my family and the staff, and they agreed to allow me to leave the school. I was given the option of following the standard curricula at home and getting a high school diploma, or forging my own path and getting a GED. I chose the latter, because I had no desire to continue doing work for a school I'd left.

In September of 2003, before junior year began, I was officially withdrawn from high school. I was 14 years old. Seven months later, I returned to the school for a few hours to take the ACT, on which I scored a 30. It was my last experience with educational institutions for nearly four years. Unless you're sure you can handle it, it's probably not a good idea to start high school when you're 12.

Preparation

This year, I resolved I would get my GED, among other things that I may discuss in a later update. In a general sense, I've been studying extensively using the internet for over four years, but I didn't know whether the areas I've studied would overlap with the material of the GED. To ensure I was adequately prepared, I picked up the McGraw-Hill GED workbook from a local bookstore for only $19. It's 1100 pages long, with pretests, post-tests and practice tests on writing, reading, math, science and social studies. Most of the space is taken up by lessons in the subjects you may need to review, as judged by the pretests. My lowest pretest score was 77% in math, which isn't actually that bad. To pass the GED, you need at least 410 out of 800 points in each subject, and 2250 out of 4000 total, which is far below 77%. Nevertheless, I fell short of my expectations in this area, so I proceeded to the practice sections. They were very easy to understand, and I excelled in the post-tests and practice tests. I highly recommend this workbook. In Illinois, the GED also has a test on the Constitution, Illinois Constitution and US Flag Code. Southwestern Illinois College has comprehensive Constitution study materials and a practice test.

To register for the test, I had to mail in an application, and $35. I picked the test site and date that was closest, geographically and temporally. On February 22 and 23, I would take the GED at a local community college, about nine miles away. The first day's testing would begin at 3 PM and consist of an orientation session, a demographic survey, and the Constitution test. The second day of testing would start at 8 AM and encompass writing, reading, math, science and social studies.

Day one

Despite the ease of the practice tests, I was pretty nervous on the way there. I suspect most people would be, if their graduation from high school were dependent on only two days of testing. I was even more nervous because we couldn't find the college. Google Maps somehow managed to give us the wrong directions. It's a huge campus, how the hell could you miss it? We actually had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions, and they gave us the same wrong directions! We just drove west until we saw the buildings far off to the left. I arrived at the same time as a busload of young black gentlemen. They were from Boot Camp, a military-style incarceration program for non-violent offenders. They had electronic ankle bracelets. They were accompanied by two armed police officers. Terrific. They and I were the only ones there for a while, so I tried to keep to myself and avoid making eye contact. We were in an open area with numerous desks and eight computers along the walls. There were actual college students there, too. I could only imagine what they thought of having criminals and dropouts in their school. I felt entirely out of place.

Eventually, more people arrived, as well as three test administrators. We were told to form three lines based on which test form we were assigned. The woman in charge, Ms. IC, seemed like she was pissed off just to be alive. I probably would be too, if I had to deal with these people regularly. She listed everything that wouldn't be allowed in the test room, including cell phones. She said we might be frisked tomorrow, just to make sure we weren't carrying any "contraband". Wonderful! I was in the line for form IE, and Ms. IE (who seemed far less pissed off) took my ID card and observed carefully as I signed my name. That kind of sucked, because when I got my ID, I had to sign my name on a very small touchscreen. The signature on my ID looks nothing like my actual signature, as it's much too vertically compressed and just piles up into illegibility at the end. Nevertheless, I was allowed inside. I'm sure my handwriting wasn't too bad compared to that of everyone else present.

Once inside, we were each given a packet of Scantron sheets and sent to our assigned seats. I was lucky enough to be seated between two Boot Camp detainees. They just couldn't stop talking to each other, and Ms. IC repeatedly told everyone to not speak at all. The one on the left frequently, and loudly, referred to her as a "bitch", and called everyone else "dumb motherfuckers". The one on the right asked where I was from, and if I attended any parties. "Parties with beer", he specified. Leftie, who was coincidentally a leftie, was surprised that I didn't finish high school. He said I looked "like some kind of computer geek" who "should be in college or some shit". Dumb and Dumber continued rambling until Ms. IC yelled at them. She was reluctant to begin the orientation, because, as she said, "there's always someone who comes in late and then I have to start all over". Indeed, about five minutes after she started, an obese Muslim woman arrived. She evidently didn't understand English very well, and Ms. IC made it clear that anyone arriving late tomorrow would be turned away.

After the orientation, we had to fill in our names and other information on several Scantron sheets. I assume this was a test of whether or not we were able to pay attention and understand basic instructions during this incredibly boring process, as many other people were apparently unable to do so. Ms. IC threatened to have Leftie removed from the room because he wouldn't stop talking. Once this was finished, there was a demographics booklet for us to fill out. Aside from our basic personal information, it had questions about our income, our employment status, how much schooling we'd completed, why we left school, what subjects we'd taken, our approximate grades in these subjects, and whether we prepared for the GED. Afterwards, there was a short break outside before the Constitution test. Everyone who had already taken the Constitution test elsewhere was allowed to leave. This included all the Boot Camp detainees, and as they were waiting for their bus to arrive, one of the cops was sending bulletins on MySpace.

While waiting for them to let us back in to take the test, I sat down and listened to everything. One girl was talking about how she was two credits away from becoming a paralegal, and was trying to get into a state university, when she found out the high school she'd graduated from was unaccredited. I felt so bad for her. Imagine wasting all that time in high school and ultimately having nothing to show for it. Forget bullying and mental illness, this is what school shootings are made of. She was really nervous about the GED, too. They finally let us back in after repeating the sign-in process, and gave us our form for the Constitution test. Unlike the earlier session, we were hardly monitored at all, possibly because the Boot Camp detainees were gone. S, who had an S-shaped bald spot on the back of his head, and his acquaintance, Coat Guy, were sitting in the row in front of me. They asked me if the test would be difficult, and if I'd studied for it. I shouldn't have answered, because they immediately decided to sit on either side of me. Nobody overseeing the test seemed to have any problem with this.

There were 60 questions on the Constitution test, many of which were copied almost exactly from the online practice test. It was extremely easy, and there were only a few I didn't know the answer to. S and Coat Guy were very obviously copying from my sheet the entire time. I was the first to finish, and they let us leave as soon as we were done.

Day two

I woke up at 2:20 AM, and couldn't get back to sleep. After seeing how easy the Constitution test was, I wasn't so concerned about the remaining tests. I was just excited about finally getting this over with. We got there about 45 minutes early, because now we knew where the campus was. I was the only one there, until the Boot Camp bus arrived. This time, no officers came with them. Many of them were bragging about how many DUI convictions they've received. Spectacular. We went through the same sign-in procedure as yesterday, and we weren't frisked for cell phones. Once we were all seated, Ms. IC decided to shuffle the seating arrangement. Dumb and Dumber were moved far away from each other, leaving me with empty seats on either side. S was moved to sit one seat to my left, and he was quite pleased about this. Ms. IC discovered that someone had written "FUCK YOU" in black marker on the card with Coat Guy's seat number on it, and demanded to know who did it. She also threatened to have campus security remove the next person who talked. By now, I was getting pretty tired of being treated like a criminal for trying to advance my education, but considering most of the people here were actually criminals, I couldn't really blame her.

While Ms. IC was explaining how today's tests would be conducted, Obese Muslim Woman showed up late, again. The test administrators talked to her outside for several minutes, and let her in. Ms. IC then took issue with our attire, and told everyone to remove their hats, pointedly glaring at a girl in the front row who was wearing a bright green hoodie. She pulled the hood back, revealing why she was wearing it. She had a stout cylinder of coiled strands of hair sitting in the exact center of her scalp. It's difficult to describe how terrible this looked; it was like some kind of methed-out, pumpkin-colored bun. Now, my hair is far from glamorous, but if I had something like that on top of my head, I don't think I'd want anyone to see it. Ms. IC and Ms. IE had a brief discussion about whether OMW should remove her headscarf, and decided she shouldn't. Once these issues of seating, profanity, security and headgear were resolved, we finally began the math test.

There were a total of 50 questions, and we could use a Casio fx-260 scientific calculator for the first 25. Unlike the practice test, there were no questions about polynomials or trigonometric functions. None of them even had fraction or decimal answers. Once we finished, we could leave the room and take a break before the next test. Most of us finished with over 30 minutes left. I bought some Fritos from the vending machine, and checked out one of the functioning computers. It was a Micron with a 600MHz PIII and a 20GB hard drive, running Windows XP. The mouse had no wheel, and Internet Explorer was the only browser installed. I checked the positions of my reddit submissions, and tried to access the ABS Java chat, but Java wasn't installed and I didn't have sufficient permissions to install it. MySpaceIM was running, though. I disabled it. The CRT was running at 60Hz, which was extremely irritating, so I changed it to 75Hz. This was boring as hell, so I sat down with S, since he was the person I was most familiar with by now.

I discovered that I wasn't the only one coming up with memorable nicknames for people whose names I didn't know. S referred to me as Fogell. I asked about this, and he explained that Fogell was a character from Superbad. I hadn't seen it at the time, but now that I have, it seems like that nickname is kind of a mixed bag. We exchanged stories of our experiences with the educational system. S was expelled after 8th grade and never attended high school. Phone Girl sat down with us, and showed us several cameraphone pictures of herself making out with various girls. She and S discussed the merits of smoking marijuana in preparation for tests. Apparently, it's helpful as long as you don't become excessively paranoid. S asked whether I'd ever used pot, and upon learning that I hadn't, offered to have all three of us immediately leave the premises in his car and toke up. I declined. In a feeble attempt to find common ground with these people, I asked if they'd ever designed any websites. They hadn't. I don't even really know what kind of answer I was expecting; maybe Fogell was an apt nickname.

The next test was writing, with a multiple choice section and an essay section. I was a bit worried about the essay section, because I don't usually write fully developed essays in less than an hour, and I handwrite perhaps a few times a month. S was worried too, but only because he wouldn't be able to copy from me. I checked out some of the sample essay topics beforehand, and many of them were utterly bland and generic, like "What has been the happiest day of your life so far?" and "How do you define success?" I wasn't sure I'd be able to effectively bullshit my way through such a topic. However, an average of 200-250 words would be considered sufficient, and we'd only have two pages to use. It would be graded holistically on a scale of 1 to 4 in four areas. 2 was the minimum to pass. After seeing some actual GED essays, most of my concerns were assuaged. If someone can write five sentences and pass, this isn't a big deal.

As Ms. IC explained the writing test, we were allowed to view our topics. This was nice, because I could think about it while I breezed through the multiple choice section, and they let us apply whatever time remained after finishing the multiple choice section to the essay section. I received topic N, which asked about one of my past or present ambitions. I was very pleased with this topic, and wrote about how I'd like to become a computational neuroscientist to help find cures to neurodegenerative diseases, because it's something I'm actually passionate about. I used both sides of my single sheet of scratch paper to outline the essay and draft sentences before committing them to the test booklet. I opened with simple definitions of neuroscience and how computer modeling is used in this field, explained my longtime interest in computers and the brain, and described how Alzheimer's disease has affected my family, putting it all in the standard five-paragraph format. S seemed surprised that I was taking so long, and many people turned theirs in before I did, but I wanted this to be good. It came out to around 380 words, filling 1.5 pages. I really hope that some essay grader, jaded by deciphering scribbles about making babies, doesn't just look at it and say "Compu-neuro-what the fuck is this?"

I finished the writing test with about 20 minutes to spare, and moved on to the science test. When Ms. IC announced that the writing test was over, OMW apparently didn't understand. She kept writing for about five minutes until Ms. IC noticed this and told her to turn it in. While I was working on the science test, Ms. IE noticed S was up to no good, and there was a cryptic exchange between them.

"Hey."
"What?"
"You know what."

He was allowed to continue testing. Ms. IE was looking at me, and conversing with another test administrator. The science test mostly involved comprehension of the material they presented, as did social studies and reading. One of the social studies questions was exactly the same as a question in the practice test. It was a political cartoon of the leaders of Israel and Palestine shaking hands atop a house of cards. Every test was easier than the practice tests, and I finished around 2:20 PM. On the way home, my grandfather told me about how he got his GED when he was in the Navy.

Aftermath

Taking the GED tests put me in contact with a subset of society that, most of the time, I could safely ignore. Not anymore. When people see that I have a GED, they'll be thinking of the thugs, the drunk drivers, the attention-deficient, the cheaters, the barely literate, the habitual drug users, and everyone else who couldn't finish high school. The vast majority didn't drop out because school wasn't intellectually stimulating enough, and this experience has disabused me of any notion that people will view me, a GED recipient, as a good person who was simply in a bad situation. I'm checking the mail every day, eagerly awaiting the results which will affirm that I'm about as smart as a prisoner with three DUIs under his ankle monitor.

I still have my class ring. It's like an artifact from an alternate universe, where someone with my name graduated from my high school in 2005. Now, it only serves as a reminder. Stay in school, faggots.

Facts about the GED:

• GED doesn't stand for Graduate, Equivalent, Degree, Diploma, or any combination thereof. It stands for General Educational Development.
• GED recipients are less likely to find employment than high school graduates, and when they do, they earn less than high school graduates.
• GED recipients are less likely to finish postsecondary education than high school graduates.
• 70% of people who take the GED tests fail on their first attempt.
• 30% of high school graduates who take the GED tests fail.
• Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson were able to pass the GED.

1. I must emphasize this wasn't a good school for me. It's located in an upper-middle-class suburb that's over 90% white, and its dropout rate is only 1.2%.

Update, 12 March 2008: I received my GED results today. I got 3710 out of 4000, and scored in the 99th percentile for reading, writing and science. And they actually do call it an Illinois High School Equivalency Certificate.