For those of you who don’t hang out on Facebook 24/7 like I do, this may be news. On Monday, Nicholas took the big test to get into Gymnasium, which is the school that will eventually let you go to university. It’s a big deal. In fact, it’s kind of a huge deal. Pretty much, the entire future course of his life is determined by this one test. That he takes at the tender age of 12. Talk about pressure!
Needless to say, preparation starts early and is pretty intense. Way back at the beginning of the school year his teacher asked the kids who thought they would like to take the test. Those children were invited to attend an extra hour of school, every Thursday during their lunch break to prepare/study for this test. They were also given additional homework, just for this class, and due every Thursday. I would pack a lunch for Nick since he was unable to come home from school that day. He usually spent most of Saturday doing the homework for it.
Then in January the county offered a preparation course as well. Most kids just go to the county prep. course. But our school really wants as many kids as possible to do well, so that is why they offer the extra prep course starting at the beginning of the year. This course was on Saturday mornings, for about an hour and a half and replaced the extra class on Thursday. Most of what they did consisted of old tests from previous years. The teacher would hand them out, teach them how to do the math, or explain what was expected, then the kids would take them home and work on it during the week. Then they would go over how to solve the problems the next week.
One of the last things they did was do a trial run of an actual test. The kids were timed, just like in the real thing, and then the teacher graded them just like the examiners would. Nicholas was humbled to learn that if that had been the real deal, he would not have passed. Apparently the teacher couldn’t read some of his answers, so was unable to give him credit! You can guess what our area of emphasis was after that.
Registering him to take the test was pretty complicated as well. So I let Chris handle it. I could just see me forgetting to do some small thing, and ruining Nicholas’ chance because of it. Too much pressure! (shiver) First you had to fill out a form and pay money just to get a special number that would allow you to fill out the actual registration form. I don’t know what all else was involved, but I think each step had a deadline attached to it. So it was already stress inducing before actual test day.
As fate, luck, whatever, would have it, test day was on the morning of the kids’ first day back at school after 2 1/2 weeks of vacation. For some kids this may not have mattered. For Nicholas, we were a little worried. He would be expected to write an essay, and answer a bunch of grammatical questions all in German, after having spoken and heard nothing but English for several days beforehand. Not good. So we went to the library and checked out several new books in German, plus Chris put a couple of the Harry Potter books on the Kindle, also in German, and we made Nicholas read for at least an hour every day during vacation. We also had him do a little math every day. Not exactly a relaxing vacation, poor kid.
Finally the big day arrived. He wasn’t exactly nervous, he said it was more of an excited feeling. Whatever the case, he hadn’t slept much at all the night before, and we had to get up early that morning to make sure he was at the school on time. You take the test at the school you are hoping to be admitted to. Urdorf is only 20 minutes away when there’s no traffic, but at that time of morning, both the freeway and the side streets were pretty packed. Still, we had left early enough that he made it there with about 10 minutes to spare.
There wasn’t any parking anywhere, so I couldn’t walk him in. I just wished him good luck and dropped him off. I was very nervous about this, and pulled over just around the corner and ran back trying to find him, but he was already gone. I finally just said a prayer and told myself, “If he can’t figure out where his assigned room is, he probably shouldn’t be going to the school anyway.” He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. Well, he was, sort of. He got to the correct wing of the correct building, but the wrong floor. Fortunately he ran into J. who is in our ward and whose son was also taking the test that day. He pointed him in the right direction, and Nicholas made it in time. (If you show up late, you don’t get to take the test. Period.)
We had packed him a snack, and a water bottle, along with 2 and 3 versions of everything they said to bring on the official list. We were hoping they would give them a break in between the different parts. They did, 30 minutes long. During one of these breaks, Nicholas saw another kid crying. 🙁 He said there was only one math problem he hadn’t ever really seen before, but it was easy enough to figure out. He also looked up a couple of words in his student dictionary that he wasn’t sure about, but was able to write 2 pages for the essay part. Whew! He felt good about it, and it was finally over!
Since this is Switzerland, he didn’t get the afternoon off, but had to be right back in regular school when the bell rang after lunch. Kind of mean, I thought, but whatever. All day Tuesday he complained about his stomach hurting and in the night he threw up a couple of times. He had no fever, or headache, but was just very tired, with stomach cramps. I let him stay home Wednesday from school. Good thing, since he slept the entire morning, and didn’t really eat anything until that evening. I don’t think he was actually bacterially/virally sick, but rather his body just shut down after the adrenalin rush left him. He was exhausted mentally and physically, and just needed a day to do nothing but recoup.
We will get the results in the mail by May 19th. Whatever happens, he can be sure that he gave it his best, and prepared as much as possible. We are so proud of him for that alone, no matter what the numbers say.