#9 – The Monthly Test

“Pssst!”

I didn’t mind him.

“Psssssssst!”

Could this guy not take a hint?

“Psssssssssssssssst! Herh, Kodzo, I know say you hear me.”

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Atico

There is a phenomenon in Motown known as ‘Atico’. Herh, Atico, that thing ehnn. Hmmmm.

In Motown, every term, there are two major tests, the “Monthly Tests”, followed by an end-of-term exam. These monthly tests contributed to 30% of your grades for the term, but that’s not why we cared. The real motive for doing well in the monthly tests was to avoid the Atico list.

Every term, right before the midterm break, a list would be posted on the notice board at the school’s administration block — the Atico List. If your name appeared on this list, if you “dropped Atico“, you were not going home for the midterm break. You would stay in school and learn for like three to five days while everyone else went home… sad, chale, just sad.

So how do you drop Atico? What crime did you have to commit to earn a spot on this list of men and women who wouldn’t get to see their parents over the weekend?

It’s actually easier than you think. All you had to do was get less than 50%, the “red-circle” mark, in any two subjects in one term, and congratulations, no midterm break for you the next term.

Sucks, huh? Guess what, the red-circle mark was moved up to 55% in my third year. After that change, there was a term where almost half of the whole school did not go home for the midterm break.

Those were weird times — you couldn’t look at people’s faces when your parents came to pick you up.

Anyway, I hope you realize how this made the monthly tests important. Each test was a chance to redeem a chunk of the 50% that would determine whether or not you would have a midterm break the next term. Acing the tests meant you had less ground to cover in the end-of-term exams. Flunking meant you had to squeeze every last mark out of your papers in the end-of-term.

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The First Monthly Test

I wasn’t a bad student in school, I won’t even lie. My dad had faith that I could become a Brilla boy, one of the elite students who represented their schools in the National Science and Math Quiz televised every year.

Honestly, I wasn’t some ultra-nerd, but chale, I was doing well—me too God has blessed me—and as the monthly test approached, people noticed.

Formation

You learn a lot in high school. Maybe you don’t learn all the math and science your parents hoped you would, but you will definitely learn a lot.

Heck, even if you somehow manage to learn nothing, it will be a whole lot of nothing.

In Motown, some people learned what is known as “exams formation”. 4-4-2 and 4-3-2-1 took on different meanings during exam and test periods.

Think along these lines…

…except that ‘Messi’ is some unfortunate nerd whose work will be copied by Thiago and Fabregas, who will then propagate the answers backward to Adriano, Busquets, and Alves, and so on. You get the idea. The term “Academic Integrity Violation” was unknown to these high school miscreants.

Sometimes the nerd is in on the formation, other times he is an innocent pawn who finds himself at the center of a system designed to outwit the invigilators.

And that’s what happened to me: I was the nerd at the forefront of a formation in the worst paper of our first ever monthly test, physical education.

Wait, you thought I’d say mathematics? You obviously have not taken Mr. Bruce’s P.E. test before; it is more intensive than medical school anatomy exams.

So there I was, trying to remember whether the human hand had metatarsals or metacarpals, and how many bones make up an adult’s spine, and this guy, let’s call him Eli, was there disturbing me, “Pssssst, pssssst!”

I know what some of you are thinking: tell him the answer already.

Relax, it’s my story, not yours. Okay, now that you are all caught up, let’s pick up where we left off:

“Pssst!”

I didn’t mind him.

“Psssssssst!”

Could this guy not take a hint?

“Psssssssssssssssst! Herh, Kodzo, I know say you hear me. What be number five?”

Sorry to disappoint you. I did not know the answer to number five.

Also, if I knew the answer to number five, I would not have told him. There were forty questions on that paper; no way I was going to encourage him to see me as the source of his next thirty-five answers.

Again, even if I wanted to tell him the answer, I still wouldn’t have.

I have this chronic condition called a working conscience.

I know, it’s a weird condition to have in the 21st century, but I’m one of those people who contracted it from our parents and friends through no fault of ours. We can even go a step further and blame Jiminy Cricket from Disney’s Pinocchio animation.

And so I played deaf, but I promise, this guy was persistent.

Where was the invigilator anyway?

“Psssssssssssssssssst! Oh, I beg, just number five”, Eli’s voice came again.

I turned around with every intention of telling him, “Dude, I don’t know the answer”. I managed to get out the word “Dude”.

Guess who decided to show up then.

If your guess was the invigilator, I honestly wish you were right.

“Are you tchalking during a tchesht?!”

It was J-Poons, the senior housemaster himself! The one who talked funny.

“Oh sir, please, no… I, I, I was… It was… “, I stuttered.

“Foolish boy, you have been caughtch red-handed and you’re going tcho lie?! Justch form one, and you’re already lying and practchishing exsham malpractchish?!”

The class was deathly quiet.

I couldn’t even laugh at J-Poon’s weird pronunciations. I wanted to cry — forget ‘hard guy’. $#** just got real.

“Sir, he was picking my eraser for me”, Eli stepped in, cool as an ice cube. He must have had a lot of practice with lying.

“Oh, is that all”, J-Poons replied. Then turning to me he asked, “Ɛna wo nso w’anka hwee?”–And you couldn’t say anything? Just like that, he walked away and it was over.

I didn’t know whether to thank Eli or insult him. What do you do to someone who gets you in trouble and then saves you? I was still contemplating this when his words broke my train of thought, “So the number five, wossop?”

I’m not proud of the insults I rained on him in response. I might have gone as far as to involve his parents. There’s no way I’m repeating those words here.

I turned back to my paper, and the invigilator walked in right then.

“Fifteen minutes more!”

“Your head like ‘fifteen minutes'”, I thought to myself, then I wrote down “metatarsals” as the. answer to number five.

I was wrong.

It turns out the human hand has metacarpals, not metatarsals. Go figure.