It’s been several years — five, in fact — since we’ve been up to Mosinee for the state testing for Namine’s school, Rural Virtual Academy (RVA for short). It was postponed indefinitely due to quarantine, but now the RVA has brought it back.
I’ve never heard of a testing event that the students look forward to, but their state testing is. Namine by her own admission is not a “test person,” but even she looks forward to it. She was elated to find that she’d be going back this year.
The night prior
As we have done in years past, we traveled to the hotel to spend the night. What was different this year was that Namine would not split her testing time across both days. Rather, she started quite early the next morning, which required us to either leave home around 5:00 in the morning or spend the night prior in town. That choice was really no choice at all.
Even though Namine wouldn’t be testing at all that day, the RVA was still kind enough to pay for our hotel room. They made sure to get an accessible room for us, complete with a zero-clearance shower.
The day of
Suffice it to say, hotel beds are not the most restful. We got what rest we could, but all three of us felt that our night could have been better. Despite that, Namine still felt ready for her morning testing. This year, the test she took was the pre-ACT. She’ll take the ACT in her Junior year of high school, so she has this year and next to continue preparing by taking pre-ACTs.
Unlike previous years where Namine’s state testing was not timed, the pre-ACT is. Namine had two hours and ten minutes to complete four sub-tests. She completed these in about two hours — I think, maybe a little under that — after which we headed home. We had already checked out of the hotel at this point, so the car was packed.
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