I just had to come on here and have a good old rant. Today I have been taking an English test. Its just a little thing through the agency, getting paid to sit it for a company that is formulating the test for foreign nationals. Now, I don't actually have much information about what the test is for other than what I've just said. I wonder whether its anything to do with a citizenship test or the new legislation coming into effect (if it hasn't already) that makes it difficult for immigrants to come here unless they've got some sort of job/qualification we need (much like the Australian points system if you know what I mean). Which is why I imagined that it was just a basic English test ie testing grammar, punctuation etc.
What I actually got was an exam seeing if I understood molecular biology and environmental science. What.... the ..... fuck?! Ah so its a test for foreign national nuclear physicists is it? Or foreign national brain surgeons? Foreign national marine biologists? Anyone? Anyone? Admittedly there were a few questions about English; select the verbs in this sentence, fill in the blank words from this drop down list, read out the sentence etc but half the questions weren't a test of English at all. Or didn't seem to be. The first couple of questions seemed to be about how quickly you could take notes and then summarise them (ok this might be vaguely language related), another about how quickly you could type. By far the worst ones were where you had to listen to an excerpt from a lecture on some complex scientific subject and then describe in your own words what the lecturer was saying. Say what?! How the fuck is that a test of someone's ability to understand English per se? I speak the language fluently and I couldn't understand a fucking word. And I'm not sure if it was because the speech was taken out of context but one chap just seemed to be randomly wittering on about fish. The best I could grasp was, "Sometimes the fish want to feed but sometimes they don't which could be really bad.". I don't think I've ever felt so utterly stupid in my entire life. Well, I probably have but it loses the effect otherwise.
I'm not a thicko. I'd say I was reasonably intelligent. I can string a sentence together which is more that some people manage these days. But how is asking someone to explain complex scientific concepts a test of their ability to understand English? Its like an optician testing your eyesight by getting you to fart the theme from Dad's Army. Is it going to get you to the train station in time for the 3.20 to Chiswick? Or get you a meat & potato pie from Dave's van outside the football stadium? Or secure a room in a Blackpool B&B? What practical use/application does it have?
Maybe its not a test for the average Joe (or Juan) and that's why its so unnecessarily complicated. If so, why get people like me to complete it? I'm baffled. I skipped quite a few questions. I was tempted to give a sarcastic answer but thought it might stop me from getting paid. At least its over now. I was so stressed. I know it doesn't amount to a hill of beans compared to alot of things that are going on in the world right now. Never again. Never.
Oh, and it doesn't inspire much confidence when there's an elementary spelling mistake on one of the first screens. How can someone who doesn't know the difference between 'too' and 'to' test other people on their English? *sigh*
Labels: rant, stress, work
