Vocational Testing Day 4

Today went a little better.

I was allowed a little more time with that math problem solving from yesterday but basically I still took forever and I think I got more questions wrong than right. I was never fantastic at Math but it is unbelievably difficult now.  One thing I did was write in the exam book! Gasp! I still needed to write on the bubble sheet, but at least this way I could double check that I was still on the correct line of the test. I kept doing stupid things like figuring out the answer and then I would find myself looking for the numeral of the question  as if it was one of the multiple choice answers. That would be my short term memory issue rearing it's ugly head.

The tester got me to do a memory test. He had me look at a page with 20 pictures on it for a period of time and then I was supposed to recall what the pictures were. I have had lots of practice with this style of test in OT. This time I think I recalled 14 items and I told him I have worked on this a lot and have found coping techniques. He said that he could tell I was using some techniques. Yup it shows.

Today there was also a hands-on component to the testing. I think the idea is to check fine motor control and hand eye coordination. I do not think I have a future as a welder.  My mechanic husband would have probably split his sides laughing if he could have seem me try to string electrical wires through little holes.
Worse than showing limited aptitude on those skills was that I found it impossible to work on the paper and pencil tasks that I was personally more concerned with while others were taking their turns banging on the test equipment. Even the sound of the instructor talking in the background was enough to throw me off track.

We also had some tasks sorting cards into different orders. I think I was pretty accurate with those tasks, but maybe not as fast as would be needed for a career as a filing clerk.

Another activity was a spelling test.  It was the old fashioned version where the teacher says the word and you write it on a piece of paper. I had an overwhelming urge to get up in the middle and go sharpen my pencil but I resisted.

Then we went on to a language arts test. We had to dentify punctuation, capitalization and grammer errors for one section followed by organizing sentences into the correct order in a paragraph.
Oh oh. You writers and editors out there show great restraint when  reading blogs like mine!

A highlight of the day was lunch with two of the other ladies. We talked about how much difference it made to be having a breakfast with protein before doing all this testing. We talked a bit about our hopes for new jobs. We also talked about how nice it is to have some structure in the day. You spend your working days looking forward to vacation time and retirement, but the reality is that it is good to have somewhere you are expected to be and something worthwhile to do.

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com