True dread: time again for CRS

College Readiness Standards test days are few and far between at Mount Carmel, but each trimester when they do arrive, they leave almost every student in some sort of anguish.

The next “CRS” assessment will take place will take place on Thursday, January 21.  This trimester’s /Parent Teacher Conferences  will follow that afternoon from 2 to 6 PM. Whether it’s the fact that most students fear standardized tests, or that they dread confronting their parent’s anger at the parent teacher conferences that follow on the afternoon of each CRS , these days brings many students to their knees begging for mercy.

To sit in a desk for four hours penciling in little bubbles can bring even the toughest students to tears. Add on top of it the fact that the test is worth five percent of your grade, and you can have even the best students sweating bullets.

While it may be true for some that the CRS means nothing, in fact it is a difficult test with ramifications if not done well. Though students will be upset at this sight of this day, it isn’t a cake walk for the teachers either. Mr. Lorenzo Nunez, a freshman theology teacher, feels that students should embrace the test. “It is a good way to help students prepare (for the ACT). It gives actual help and trains you for these tests.”

If the three hour CRS wasn’t enough for some students, the prospect of having your parents come to school and talk to your teachers later that day can really send your day spiraling down. While some students may have nothing to worry about, for others it can be the icing on the cake for the bad day.

Still, Nunez also talked about the benefits of parent teacher conferences, saying that he liked them because he could put faces to the students, and could actually talk to the parents and get to know them.

In the end, I guess you can’t deny the benefits of the CRS and of teacher conferences.  But I don’t have to like it.