Sunday 6 December 2015

The Nightmare That Was Boards

After the harrowing experience that was final finals, I had the pleasure of sitting the licensing exam. NAVLE, it's called: the North American Veterinary Licensing Exam. As if three weeks of written and oral exams weren't enough, I had to study for another two weeks, make the six hour drive to Auckland, and then take the most difficult and frustrating test of my life. Unfortunately, the reason it was so awful had a lot more to do with the climate control than the material.

I took the test in December, which means hot, humid, muggy weather in Auckland. We stayed in a cheapish-but-central hotel, in a room the size of a closet, with no fan, no air conditioning, and no internet. The only thing to do in that room was lay on the bed with all the windows open and try not to stick to everything, because outside was just as muggy and breeze-less as inside. There was a tiny tv with six channels, and then me with my stack of notes that I'd read over a hundred times in the past month.

Okay, so miserable hotel, whatever. I've traveled, I can deal. But what really got me was the testing centre. I'm surprised I made it out alive.

The instructions were to show up half an hour early, so we could get all registered and set up. The elevators were weird and broken, so I had to go to the floor below and take the stairs up, then wander around to find a registry desk--which was dark and empty. One by one several of my classmates arrived, and we all stood around awkwardly, waiting for someone to show up. There was a dark, empty, locked room labeled as the testing centre, and literally no other soul in sight. The half hour elapsed, and then another.

Eventually someone did show up, and then we were taken into another room, sat down, and told to wait some more. One by one, we were called up to give ID, get scanned for cell phones or devices, and handed official scratch paper for notes. The actual testing chamber was a row of eight computers divided into cubicles, each with a set of ancient, uncomfortable, noise-blocking headphones. And no climate control.

In the crisp wee hours of the morning, all went well. I worked my way through the old-fashioned UI and got to test-taking. It's a multiple choice exam with six modules of 60 or so questions. They are timed so you have an hour for each module, but no specific timing on individual questions. There were a whole lot of details to this process, but it's all a blur in my memory--which is wont to happen when you take a seven hour exam in a room like an oven. I realise my math doesn't add up right... I think the extra time comes from the hour or so of allotted break time. You can take your breaks whenever and however you want, between modules. So like, if you start a module, you're stuck until you finish it, but if you want a 10 minute break after each one, you can, or you can power through half and take a long lunch, etc etc.

As time wore on, with eight people in this cramped, sound-proofed room (read: oven), my physical and mental state deteriorated. Even though I took as many breaks as I could, as soon as I got back in the room, I started getting lightheaded and having a hard time concentrating. I was so sure I would faint. I had to start taking breaks specifically to go to the bathroom and lay wet toilet paper over my forehead and neck. Oh yeah, the bathrooms were on another level, had a security code on them, and no paper towels. And the cold water was lukewarm.

The material on the test was irritating, too. I knew going into it that there would be a certain percent of questions where I had no clue, had never heard of the disease/diagnostic test before, and would have to guess at random. I didn't expect all the other annoying questions. For instance, at least 50% of the small animal questions were on cat respiratory disease. There was supposed to be a large section of pig questions, and only a rare deer question, but instead, there were no pig questions and lots of deer questions (guess what I studied). And the most annoying of all were the questions that asked what step would you take next, and then list 5 tests or procedures that are absolutely appropriate for that clinical situation, and I had to try and hazard which really-important-helpful-thing they wanted me to do arbitrarily first.

I was the first one out of there. I've always been a fast test-taker, but after a point I was just like, "I need to get out of here before I pass out." I believe I started at 9am and finished at 3:30pm, so 6.5 hours total. On my evaluation form, I wrote angry comments about the climate control. My husband traveled with me, and I found out he, too, had laid around dying of heat and humidity, with the original intention of exploring the city.

We went out to eat at the rotating restaurant on top of Auckland's Sky Tower, and he'd put the reservation under my name as "Dr" and we had wine and lamb and dessert. Then we went to the ice bar and stayed there a good long while.


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