Poetry Collection: Bored During Exams

This is kind of a joke post, but here are the snippets of poetry I came up with after I finished the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam, phonetically KAY-SEE) this week. Basically, we couldn’t do anything (including read or drink water) until all everyone was done, so I was really bored. I doodled these poems in my test booklet, remembered them, and them embellished them a bit when I typed them here. For nicer poetry inspired by the event, you can go to yesterday’s post, Poetry: Standardized Life.

Hope you get a kick out of these 🙂

Limerick

 (I know the syllables are a bit off, sorry)

There once was a test so easy

Everyone finished it breezily

They were so bored

They gave up and snored

That was the day of the CAHSEE

click to link to picture credit

Edgar Allan Poe Spoof from The Raven

Once upon a morning dreary, while I pondered, bored and bleary

Over many a dull and pointless question of forgotten math

While I nodded, nearly napping, wishing there would come a ringing,

As of the bell gently ringing, ringing for the test’s end

“Tis almost coming,” I muttered, “ringing for the test’s end–

Only this hour, then nothing more.”

 

Ah, distinctly I recall it was in the bleak test hall,

And each separate eraser shred wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the finish; – vainly I had sought to vanish

From the world of boredom – boredom at the test dubbed CAHSEE-

At the dull and basic test whom the state named CAHSEE –

Endless here for evermore.

 

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Spoof

I used the formula less orthodox

and that made the sum the difference

Poetry: Standardized Life

Standardized tests

Desks in straight rows

Backpacks at the front of the room

No food or drink

 

Teachers turned into flight attendants

With carefully worded,

God-awful repetitive scripts:

You may not talk while test materials are distributed

And unauthorized electronic devices are prohibited during the testing session

 

You’ve got your Test Booklet and your Answer Document

And two hours to fill

Mind-numbing right when you need your brain alert

That song you heard on the radio driving to school

Stuck in your head

Number two pencils vie for the title of dullest

With “read this passage and answer questions 7 through 12”

 

Learned the procedure

(And the answers)

In elementary school

The bar set so low some people trip.

So used to running hurdles

That they forgot how they learned to walk.

 

Once again:

Unauthorized electronic devices are prohibited during the testing session

 

It’s hard to believe them

When they tell us to be more than our grades

To look at the world beyond AP textbooks and SAT prepbooks

When our ticket out of high school

Is a scantron and a two and a half page essay

 

This is not the place for personality

Or excess knowledge

Artistic ability or stylistic writing

Please just put your periods at the end of your sentences.

And commas in the usual places,

No surprises, thanks.

 

Now is not the time to show us how you shine

Please just bubble here

Print legibly

Fit yourself into this box

Do not concern yourself with outside of it

Jump through hoops here

Here

And here.

 

And remember

Unauthorized electronic devices are prohibited during the testing session.

Author’s note: I took the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam, phonetically KAY-SEE) this week. Four hours of boring, easy questions that determine whether I get to graduate high school. And yes, I’m only a sophomore (you have five more times to try the test if you fail the first time). We weren’t allowed to do anything (even read a book or drink water) until EVERYONE in our room was done testing. The inspiration for this poem came while I was bored, tired, and really frustrated at The System, waiting for the test to be over.