Comment by agentgt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by agentgt | Hacker News Reader

You might be asking how one fails the state testing (then gets put in remedial class) but gets accepted to college (particularly a CA state one).

Let me tell you a funny yet embarrassing story. I went to GaTech and I failed the English Regents test not once but twice!

Now at first I thought it was my fault. I didn't really take the test seriously. However I was seriously embarrassed. After all this was Georgia not California.

Long story short after having to go through a remedial english class that was a complete waste of my time and somewhat embarrassing I learned the reason I was failing.... the exam testers could not read my hand writing!

To this day I'm still sort of jaded about the whole thing.

I feel that this story needs a date to make any sense. 2015? Wow that's completely ridiculous and infuriating. 1984? Yeah that makes sense, handwriting was a critical skill for effective communication in the college setting.

I believe it was circa 2001. My whole life I have had terrible penmanship but most teachers still had the ability to read my writing.

There were a couple of other problems that exacerbated the situation. I believe you had to use their pencils and their blue notebook. This was a problem for me because by that time I had gotten quite accustomed to typing and when I did write I used a high end mechanical drafting pencil.

I didn't find out about the illegible part till I had my college's dean check out why I had failed it yet again.

He should have been told regardless. I can totally understand, sympathize, and even potentially agree with an evaluator not wanting to deal with sloppy handwriting, but a context-free failing grade is just totally unacceptable.

My brother and parents were quite upset one year when he failed his 6th grade standardized test. 20% -- so low! They were talking about his study habits etc etc and I asked to see the results. Perfect 20% in each topic. How many choices for answers? 5. Hm. Can I see your form? You filled in the B bubble for "test form" and it was an A form.

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