The MCAS Syndrome

Walking around the halls of school today all of the sophomores, myself included, looked like they had come down with a cold. Indeed they had come down with something, it's a little thing I like to call, or just today started calling, the MCAS syndrome. After being in the same classroom, with the same people, looking at the same test and book for roughly three hours and fifteen minutes, you can see how one would feel a little, for lack of better terms, whimsical for the rest of the day. Even now, at three in the afternoon, I feel like the morning is still not over.

For those who do not know, the MCAS test is given to every student in Massachusetts in varied subjects. It's a state test and is a requirement to pass to graduate from high school. For the next two days I will be taking the english MCAS, today was the composition portion of the test. After pre-writing and then writing my final essay there was still fifty minutes left of the time we were alloted, so I decided to read my book. It was better than staring out into blank space, like the other kids in the room decided to spend their time doing - I was the only one who brought a book. Once time was up, we passed onto fifth period. Thankfully, we didn't have to do anything, so once again I started to read my book. By the time the bell rang for lunch, my head felt lighter than it had before, and I felt very very tired. I decided to look past it and move on. However that was the first symptom of the MCAS syndrome.

Symptoms experienced by people who have had the MCAS syndrome include - hearing the faint sound of bagpipes, hearing dogs barking in the distance, when in fact there are no dogs on school grounds, and lastly misinterpreted phrases. All of these came true, when I was talking with my friends after lunch. When I heard bagpipes in the distance, I thought it was absurd that someone brought them to school this late, after all St. Patrick's Day was five days ago. Thinking I was absolutely bonkers, I asked my friend if she had heard the same thing and she also heard them. Coincidence? I think not! Not long after that did my other friend "R" hear dogs barking, and after that "B" heard me say something that I most certainly did not say. All of this because of a test that lasted 196 minutes. Thank you MCAS, for making us all delirious because of the brain power that you try to exert from us way too early in the morning.

That is all

P.S. MCAS syndrome is obviously not real, but we actually did hear bagpipes and dogs barking. Weird...

-"M"