Massive Rant 7Taking the FCC Federal License Exam
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Prologue / Backstory:At the school I am currently at, they make you pick a specialized class your freshman year, and you go to that class every day up until you graduate. Well, I'm currently in Electronics, and we have had the opportunity to take a FCC regulated test for amateur radio. If you pass the exam, you earn your federal license given out by the FCC and you also get an automatic 100% on the midterm for Electronics. The testing dates were December 5th (optional, just study day), and December 6th (actual test), so yesterday and today. While it isn't a requirement to attend and/or take the test, I would agree that it is highly recommended to go because it's both free and helpful.
The Rant:Anyway, I've been sick for the past 3-4 days with some bullstuff and I can't breathe through my nose (as usual), and my throat is in tons of pain. Having to wake up at 6am sharp isn't my ideal way to start a Saturday, especially when sick. I got up and got dressed and stuff, then my mom drove me to my school (where the study session and testing was being held). Keep in mind, my school is 1/5 of the state away (15 miles lol), so it's around a 30-40 minute drive depending on traffic and weather conditions.
Well, not even halfway there, the car engine just loving breaks. Like, seriously, it died. If you have me added on Snapchat, you saw that the car stopped in the MIDDLE OF THE loving STREET on a busy route. My mom nearly went into a loving panic attack and died, but she told me to get out of the car while she tries to troubleshoot the issue or just try and start the car again. I went onto the sidewalk and literally had to redirect traffic to move to the other lane while our car was just parked in front of a green light. Luckily, I managed to get a construction worker and fire police officer to help push our car into the parking lot of the conveniently placed gas station while in neutral.
Because our car was forgeted up, we couldn't risk starting it up and driving off and letting this whole thing happen again. We tried calling family member to see if they could give me a ride up to school. Due to the fact that it was 7 in the morning, nearly everyone was asleep and didn't answer. We finally got a hold of my aunt who said she would be there soon. Well, I sat there and waited for nearly an hour in a freezing cold car. After some time, she finally got there and I was able to get to school around a half hour late.
Getting there 35 - 40 minutes late wasn't really an issue because I don't think they actually reviewed much within that time. The review for the test was extremely long and would make anyone want to kill themselves rather than take the exam. To sum it up, you need to remember over 400 answers to questions, and answer a randomized 35 on the test, meaning no one has no idea what to specifically study. Going over all 10 chapters and 400+ answers took nearly 8 and a half hours, meaning I finally got out of there around 4pm - 4:30pm. After doing this much studying, everyone thought that they were 100% ready to ace the test.
So I had to wake back up early this morning. Although the pre-test reviews started at 9, I for some reason got up at 6:30am feeling like total stuff. Because of what happened yesterday, we're now using my grandmothers car while our car got towed to an auto-repair, meaning I got there on time this morning thankfully. So, the last review period was scheduled from 9-11am and the actual test would be 11-noonish, but it ended up being 9:15 - 10:30 and 11:30 - 12:30. Not a real big issue, but the gap from 10:30 to 11:30 was spent taking like 45 million class photos and having to sign our lives away on tons of forms to make sure that I am the 15-year old that I'm "claiming to be". Something strange about the whole thing was that it wasn't only high-schoolers taking the exam, there were also around 10 adults ranging from ages 20 to 70 taking it too. While taking the class pictures, this 45-year old guy was like hiding behind me during the whole thing because I was in the backrow for being tall, I don't know what the hell his deal was. Anyway, the randomly selected questions ended up being the loving hardest. Out of the 35, I ended up getting multiple questions about specific details from pages of the FCC guidebook, many about distortion and disruption between radio waves and signals, and some about frequency band equivalencies, all stuff that I really didn't know.
After the test, everyone who completed it had to sit in a room down the hallway, meaning all 40 or so of us were all stuck in one small classroom while our tests were being graded. Around every 5-10 minutes, my teacher would come in and tell someone whether or not they failed or passed indicated by whether he was holding their test packet or not, and after that, the person would just leave. Because I finished later than most others, I had to wait until loving 1:30pm to get my results. My mom pulled into the parking lot around 12:30 because that's when I assumed I was supposed to be able to leave, but nope. Anyway, when he came back into the room he asked, "Who was the one that was late due to a car failure yesterday?" (obviously hinting at me). I raised my hand and stood up and I noticed he was looking at me with a "Welp, stuff sorry" expression and no packet in his hands. Well, you know how game show hosts do that thing where they're like, "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that you'vE JUST ONE A MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!" to try and trick both the contestant and audience? Yep, that's what he did. "Before you go, I'm going to need you to sign here because you've just passed." He said pulling the packet out from behind him. I didn't like stuff my pants or anything, but I was genuinely excited and surprised that I had actually passed. I looked at my paper in his hand and it said I got 34 out of 35 correct, a 97%. I imagined how glad and proud my parents would be and how I wouldn't have to take the midterms at all. "Hold on, there seems to be a mistake." He said. "The outside of the packet says pass but the test says fail, let me correct that. Stay here." He said. So I waited out in the hallway and texted my friends and family that I actually passed and I got messages like, "Wow! I'm so proud!" and "cool". After 15 minutes of waiting, he came back out and just told me, "You failed." He just kind of looked at me and then went back to the classroom. What the forget. I honestly wanted to just loving explode but all I did was just kind of stand there and think about it, then I walked out of the building.
So this is what I assume that happened. One of the old forgets that grades this stuff got my test somehow swapped with someone elses results(???). I really don't know how something like that would happen besides the fact that they literally cannot see 3 feet in front of them, loving handicapped hacks. So yeah, I had to text every proud family member back saying, "Turns out I actually failed it", which is an extremely hard thing to do after getting them all excited. I really don't care that I failed, I was expecting it anyway, but the fact that he pulled that "oh you lost- no actually you won!" thing, then told me that it was an error and that I actually did fail just kinda crushed my heart if you know what I mean. I can't really remember anything that I even learned now, so in conclusion, it was a waste of 13 hours and an entire loving weekend.
