Shell Shocked: When ‘mid-terms’ had another meaning
Do you remember the days when “mid-terms” meant something other than elections? They meant tests that were given to us in college halfway through each course.
There were the mid-terms and the finals. Please note that we don’t call presidential elections finals. Mid-term exams were always important but it was the finals that mostly determined what your grades would be. The mid-terms were just a warm up.
Studying for both the mid-terms and finals were so much more excruciating than standing in line today to vote. Your whole college social life was put on hold during those agonizing weeks and days leading up to the exams. There were all night studying, memorizing historic dates, the laws of physics, the biology of frogs and the subjunctive tense in English. Aside from playing along with the contestants on Jeopardy, most of that information required to pass the mid-terms has been shoved into the useless bin on the nether side of your brain.
But there is one bit of studying I did for a final exam in college French that stays with me to this day. It’s a paragraph from “Le Livre de Mon Ami” by Anatole France, which I had to memorize and recite in front of the French professor. The correct pronunciation of the French language was important to this professor and your competence in French was mostly determined by how well you pronounced each word.
“C’est aussi pour moi une questions si vraiment ” was how the passage began. I passed with flying colors. I really can’t speak French currently but if prodded I will tax my memory and recite this passage to unsuspecting and unwitting friends and strangers to prove my talent in the French language. Little do they know that this passage is all I can say in French.
The setting for mid-term and final exams was always extreme. Your professor presided along with a number of proctors. Proctor was another term for prison guard. I’m amazed that we all weren’t frisked when we entered the examination room. While someone in the class always found a way to cheat, it was practically impossible to do so. Too many eyes were on you. Five proctors rushed to your desk if you yawned, stretched, sneezed or burped. You almost felt as if you would be carried out of the room and your college career destroyed.
There was a set time limit for each exam and you were required to complete the test within it. I always marveled at the students who finished their exams considerably earlier than the rest of us, handed them in and floated out of the maximum security room with a smile on their faces. Their message was clear and simple: I know this subject backwards and forwards, unlike the rest of you. Suffer, you all, while I can now go have five beers and wait for my high grade to follow.
Each time a student got up to turn in his or her exam paper I felt a new wave of panic. Why am I taking so long to answer the exam questions? Will I finish in time? Will I be the last person turning in his exam some thirty seconds before the cut off time? Why did I take this course in the first place?
I loved my college days but I certainly don’t miss the angst of mid-term and final exams. Or any exams for that matter. I both envy and sympathize with those professionals who were required to take further exams – and pass them – to practice their professions: doctors, lawyers, engineers, burglars, bank robbers and politicians. As for me, I was done when I took my final, final exam – a master’s thesis on miniature golf.