NCAE

I did not know what it stood for until I received my test booklet.

Without a clue, the orange cover page read: “National Career Assessment Exam” now I understood why every senior high school student should take that test. It was supposed to let us know what skills we have so that we will be guided on what course we should take up in college or something like that—supposed to be. But I don’t seem to….anyway; this was the whole idea of the NCAE.

All of the senior students of each high school in Cebu took the said exam last January 11, 2007 (but I suppose that the seniors of all the high schools in the country have to take this test too). That was the talk-of-the-batch that time. I just heard about this NCAE thing from my elementary friends but I never had the idea that we too are to take the test.

“What? You’re school doesn’t get to take the exam? But why?” Becky asked. What a pleasant surprise. She was the one who told me that it is only our school that’s not taking the exam together with all the other schools in Cebu. To my surprise too, I cluelessly replied, “What’s that NCAE you are talking about?” I was devotedly (oh, really?) studying for our periodical exams that night I had my conversation with Becky. I began to think, “Is our school really that special that it is the only school in the whole of Cebu which is not taking the exam?”

Or, so I thought.

After our exhausting exams, the next thing I knew is that we are going to take the said exam the next Tuesday after that week. Oh, what a sudden change of plans. Then, I was starting to wonder what that test really was.

There were seven parts of the whole thing. The test parts that I remembered were: Science, Math, and Clerical Ability, Reading Comprehension, mechanical skills and entrepreneurial skills and oh, there was this part where you get to assess your economic status and attitude towards my interests. It was a multiple-choice kind of test.

First Part: Reading Comprehension

Tick-tock, tick-tock. The time was running so slow. We got to finish that part in just a few minutes when they gave us the whole eternity to answer it. Every one of us were just so bored, we can’t help it but we really had a chat with my classmates even though we are not allowed to do so but of course, we never touched on the topic about test items (rest assured!). Almost an hour has past after we were finished answering when our proctor said, “Time’s up. Let’s proceed to the next test part.” Oh how we were longing for that statement!

The Science and Math part were good but that sometimes we got confused on some of the test items which their answers were never in the choices. Sometimes, the questions were so out of the topic and so vague. There was even one part in the Science subtest which read,

For item no. 36 only, (then there’s a table below it)

The question in that item was never coherent with the table.

Question no. 37, Based on the table in item no.36…

Now, that’s what you call inconsistency or perhaps, irrelevant.

…supposed to be. But, I greatly doubt if it would serve its purpose. That was the standard National exam. I presume that the test items were reviewed a billion times before the test booklets were produced. I presume that this tool is effective for getting the actual career assessment of the students so that our career won’t be mismatched with our skills. But, there are many typographical errors or should I say misused concepts in the test items. Some of the questions have answers or sometimes there is not enough information to answer the questions.

I just hope that this would really help us and not just a test to waste our time with no reliable results.