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Erin Tsai
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
English 1101
9 October 2014
Standardized Testing Monsters and the Reading Log Blues
At the age of 8, I loved to read. At my house, we had shelves and shelves of books. Every
room had at least one shelf almost as high as the ceiling, packed with books of every variety. We
had books about Taiwanese cooking, big red dogs, hobbits, wizards, big friendly giants,
computer graphics, and even one about a boy as flat as paper. You name it we probably owned it.
I remember staying up past midnight to read The Witches by Roald Dahl and being scared of the
disgusting witches that I was imagining in my head with the help of the detailed descriptions. At
the age of 9 and 10, something had changed. I was starting to read less and less. I wasnt
enjoying it as much as I previously did. Reading was becoming more of a chore than it was for
pleasure. What had happened in those couple of years? School had happened.
In third grade, everyone dreaded this horrible monster of a thing called the EOG. The
EOG (end of grade exam) was a test that every third grader had to take that determined if you
were capable of moving on to the next grade. The specific EOG that I had dreaded taking was the
reading EOG. This was the start of my indefinite hatred for standardized testing. I remember
thinking, Why am I being tested on knowing how to read? The whole thing was just making
me nervous. Although, I realize now how meaningless the test was because everyone passed, but
to think that this test could keep me from moving onto the fourth grade scared all my friends and
me. I clearly remember Mrs. Mogilski, a short statured, 60 year old, gray haired, elementary
school teacher wore who her jeweled, chained reading glasses around her neck and put them on

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to scold us whenever we were fooling around. I resented Mrs. Mogilski for being so strict and
forcing us to take many practice exams in preparation for the big day.
I remember walking into Mrs. Mogilskis class the day of the EOG. The room seemed
colder than usual; the desks were facing the white board and separated into rows and columns.
The classroom smelled of freshly sharpened pencils and white board markers. I could sense the
tension in the room when Mrs. Mogilski announced, Okay class, everyone take a seat so that we
can start the practice exam! Mrs. Mogilski looked so small compared to the large stack of test
papers she was handing out, as she was only 5 feet tall. She passeds out the tests row by row and
remindeds us we only hadve an hour and a half, Okay class, you may now start. I could
practically hear everyones movements in the room, as it was so quiet. The flipping of pages, the
bubbling of papers, the ticking of the clock, the occasional sniffles, and the brushing of papers to
remove the eraser particles off the paper were all so clear. As I finished about one-fourth of the
test, I noticed the weight of my eyelids starting to get heavier and heavier, question after
question, and passage after passage. I couldnt stay awake because of the sheer boredom I was in.
Questions like, Why did Cathy choose to celebrate her moms birthday instead of going to her
friends house? In which I would respond sarcastically in my head with an answer similar to,
Because she felt like it. I felt like I was dragging myself through a pool of mud and the further
I dragged myself, the slower I would become until I was finally stuck, buried deep in my own
disinterest.
Going through the process of taking an hour-long exam on meaningless short stories to
test our reading comprehension was the epitome of tedious. When I would come home from a
day of practice tests, I would tell myself that I had already read enough at school and that it was
pointless to read anymore that day. (Those days happened more often then not.) Eventually,

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almost all assigned reading became more of a chore than anything. This was just the start of my
bad habit starting to form.
In my fourth grade year, my teacher, Mrs. Kahn assigned us a reading log that we were
forced to keep up with. Even Mrs. Kahn, a kind, soft spoken, peppy, young teacher with glasses
couldnt convince me to keep up with my reading. Read everyday for an hour and make sure
your parents sign it! I hated the fact that someone was telling me when and for how long to
read. I believed that I should have been able to read on my own time when I found a good book,
not being forced to read a random book just to have been able to say that I had read for an hour
that day. I clearly remember not reading on multiple occasions and telling my mom that I had,
just to get that signature. Shouldnt I be reading because I want to read and not because someone
said I had to? It didnt make sense to me and to rebel against this, I started to despise reading.
Eventually, the readings logs began to diminish and the interest began to spark. I started
to check out more books and read more of everything. After the focus on reading and reading
comprehension became less strict, I ignited my own drive to want to read. I read magazines, I
read newspapers, I read online articles, I read books, and I read everything. This time I wanted to
read everything. My bad habits of avoiding any type of reading were diminishing quickly with
every paragraph I read. Without the pressure and strictness of someone on my back telling me
what to read and how to read it, I read it with my own perspective and with my own curiosity. I
believe wanting to read and having to read are very different. After the long drought of readers
block, I had a period of time where I was reading constantly. Reading allows me to escape to a
different time period, a different setting, a different reality. I can experience a multitude of other
worldly values just through reading. There are so many other things to learn just by reading
books, articles, etc. I do not blame my elementary school teachers for my own stubbornness, but

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from my understanding this allowed me to see that to achieve any goal, I have to want to do it
and not believe I have to do it.