While administering the ACT a few weeks ago, I found myself staring vacantly at the ceiling while the students were diligently marking bubbles on a piece of paper that had a great deal of importance regarding their futures. Due to the fact I could not read anything aside from the directions in the ACT manual, I begin imagining how those directions would be written if famous others would have written them. What started as a quirky little outlet for my creativity that should have probably died off after the first couple of examples I thought of, soon became something much greater. Two weeks have went by and I am still rattling these instructions around in my head:
It started innocently enough…
While administering the ACT today, I passed the time by imagining how famous authors would have written the ACT instructions:
“When you have completed Section 3, you may check your answers only for Section 3, as the time for checking answers for Section 2 has gone by the wayside, much like the wasted valor of all those brave boys, for boys were all they were, who died in places like the Somme, Verdun, and Cambrai…”
– Ernest Hemingway, ACT Instruction Writer
I was just passing the time while administering the ACT…
“Fiends! Madmen! The strike of the clock warrants the ushering in of the phantasmagoric, the diabolical, and that which no sane mortal being could understand. Behold! There are three hundred seconds, five rotations of the minute hand until Section 2 is but a shadowy memory of which you can only mourn for, sheltered away in your soul’s own private abyss.”
– Edgar Allan Poe, ACT Instruction Writer
What was supposed to be something to keep me entertained…
“The ACT is to be completed independently. Failure to comply will result in a forfeiture of your score. You are to work on this test alone, unlike moving through an uncaring Yukon wilderness, where the rule is to travel with a companion, so as one can build a fire in the event that an accident may occur. You will have 60 minutes to complete this section. Sixty minutes, a reminder that it can drop to sixty below zero when a man is this far north. But the camp is ten miles away and if one keeps moving, a man can make it to camp and be with the boys by sundown.”
– Jack London, ACT Instruction Writer
Has blossomed into something so much more…
“You will not talk or laugh or moo.
You will only use a Pencil #2
You will not copy and/or cheat.
You will not use a scratch sheet.
You will not have a cell phone.
You will look at no one’s test but your own.
You will follow all the rules of the ACT.
You will follow them all, yessiree.”
– Dr. Seuss, ACT Instruction Writer
And now, I may have found my literary calling…
“These directions need to be read, and I figure that I am as qualified as any other sonofabitch to do the reading. Section Two. The letters are bold, enticing, comfortable. Something tells me that this is going to take 45 minutes. It may have been the words on the paper, or the mescaline, I’ll never be sure, but 45 minutes seemed like the right time to tell these poor bastards that’s how long they have to fulfill their destinies. Don’t look back to Section One when you’re finished, there are bigger things in this world to drive towards than a part of this test that is nothing more than a speck of nothing in your rearview. The hell with it all, take as long as you want. Deadlines don’t mean a thing when you are greatness.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, ACT Instruction Writer
I do hope you get as many laughs reading these as I do coming up with them…
“Place your answer document so that page 1 faces you,” the test booklet ordered.
I felt a shiver of excitement coarse through my veins as I followed my instructions.
“Open your Taking the ACT booklet to page 5. Then follow the instructions in the booklet to complete the requested information in Blocks A through H.”
I had never felt so powerless and empowered at the same time. This test commanded my every thought, inhibition, and action. The words echoed in my being down to my very core. I could feel my body temperature rising. I was very turned on.
I thought I might be a little naughty at this point by skipping over Block B on page 1, when the test quickly put me in my place and let me know what was in control.
“Even if your document has a barcode label, you must fill in Blocks A, B, and D on page 1 completely and accurately.”
I quickly forgot any desires I had. The test was the master, and I was its slave. The only pleasure that would be derived today was to be due to my pain. That thought almost brought me to orgasm by itself.
“If you have a question, raise your hand. When you have completed Blocks A through H, put your pencil down and look up…”
I obeyed. I will always obey.
– E.L. James, ACT Instruction Writer, “50 Shades of Gray-C-T”
There’s more to come. No author, living or dead, is safe from ACT Instruction As Written By The Greats (Working title)
hemingwayish 