Placement test

Tests. Who really likes them? Seriously, besides the teachers who get a momentary respite from a classroom of rowdy teenagers, who? Tests represent the possibility that the boy sitting next to you who smokes copious amounts of pot and has never opened a textbook will get a better score than you after a week of intensive study and record levels of diet coke intake. And with that possibility comes the flicker of doubt that you are indeed in possession of superior brainpower than the early hominid.

Despite my obvious dislike of the practice, I’ve always done well at tests, probably as a result of my high level of anxiety surrounding them. I remember getting up at four in the morning on a test day in high school because I had fallen asleep on the floor surrounded by books desperate for a few more precious minutes to make sure the economic reasons for the U.S. Civil War were firmly etched on my brain. I’m quite capable of making myself sick over an exam. SAT’s, GRE’s, anything with three letters and I’m guaranteed at least one week of nightmares where all my teeth fall out, or I get to school and realize – oops – I forgot to put clothes on that morning.

Which is why I expected to be nervous when I walked into the room to take a French placement test at a language center in Geneva. Even with 7 months of 3-day a week classes in New York City leading up to our move abroad the old familiar feeling was still there. These kind of nerves create two opposite reactions in me: I’m either inclined to make desperate jokes followed by a laugh that could be classified as “deranged turkey gobbling”, or I get extremely silent, and my speech becomes reminiscent of the way dogs must think. “Yes, uhhhh, no. yes. no. huh? Bone? Yes! wag. wag wag wag wag. Huh? uhhhh, yes yes yes yes, no… huh?”

The second one got the better of me that morning. The administrator giving the exam came around to each student, correcting their written exam and doing the oral evaluation at the same time. With each red mark my self-esteem shrank, until it disappeared into my left sock where it permanently installed itself after I posted my shameful status on Facebook. I couldn’t form a complete sentence, much less answer a question like ‘why are you taking class right now?” Uh…because I’m in a French-speaking country? That would take sarcasm, which was buried in my right sock along with irony and humor. The examiner’s questions continued to burn a blazing “A” in my forehead – for the orifice on my body that was constricting the fastest. “How long have you been here? Have you taken French before? Are you working here? Why do you not speak better French?” To which I answered: One week. Yes, for 8 weeks (the 7 months never had a chance…). No, not yet. And whoa….! What did you just ask me? Why didn’t I speak better French?

I must have had a first-class idiot’s look on my face after her last question, because she shook her head, mumbled something about my lack of knowledge, and wrote the level of class I would be in on my top of my test – somewhere between 1^st and second grade French. As I sat there in shock, I looked around and tuned into the rest of the classroom. There, to my right, was a Russian man in mid-correction who seemed to be receiving an even larger dose of judgment that I had. And in front of me a mother and her 10 year old son were being grilled on why the boy didn’t know the subjunctive tense yet. This was astounding. Here was a room of ex-pats voluntarily subjecting themselves to certain humiliation, and were getting thanked for it with a healthy ego-flagellation and a dressing-down equal to that of an army recruit private first class.

I left the room in a daze, determined to tell everyone I knew about the disgraceful behavior I had just witnessed. My self-righteousness having taken over when rational thought, intelligent speech and humility had joined the rest of my positive traits in my socks, I huffed and puffed my way home, shooting daggers from my eyes at every French speaker I saw. The world was out to get me…carrying baguettes and drinking espresso.

A week later I checked my Facebook page, and saw that a friend had read my snarky comment and had made one of her own:

“Learn how to say ‘Bite me’ in French, German and Italian.”

Vous me cassez les pieds! Halt die Fresse! Smettila!

Best. Advice. Ever.