test

mathematics is not my strong suit. not by a long shot. in the efforts to find a new job i have had to sit a number of literacy and numeracy tests. one of them was to see if i could retrain in order to become a security guard (i had been asked by the pen-pusher at the jobcentre why i would want to do that when i have so many years of experience and a degree - he seemed less than impressed with my 'i am 50-years old and unemployed so the experience and degree isn't working.' answer). i am still waiting to hear if i passed that one. the second one was to see if i can qualify to do some free educational courses. the test was computer based and seemed to take forever. the grading levels are linked to external exmas - so level 2 is for gcses, level 4 to degress. it mentions levels 7 and 8 but doesn't tell you what they are for (perhaps one of them is for an honorary degree). as expected i scored high in the english. except the high score just meant that i was (in their words) operating at level 2 or 3. what? shit. that's a bit embarrassing. the maths one came in high as well. again level 2 or 3. which in one way is good, in another it makes me wonder if indeed they are right about exams of today being that much easier than they were were i was a kid. only problem with that is it means my english scores are even less impressive. i tell you this testing malarky is a minefield.