I never really understood how the seating worked at my middle school, or at the public high school. The teacher never did a "seating test" per se, but people were somehow assigned seats. You could tell that the people who had 1st Flute were better than the people who had 2nd flute, but there weren't exactly specifics (1st seat, 2nd seat... 27th seat, etc.), as far as I know. Maybe seating arrangements happened during the sectionals I couldn't attend because of choir? Anyway, I pretty much had the 1st Tenor seat for my entire middle school career because I was the only one. Also, I didn't know percussionists had seating, too.