A literary giant takes the ACT center stage…
“This section of the test, Section 4, as it is called, is thirty-five minutes long. Section 4 is the reading and comprehension portion of this test. It is a part of the ACT that has seen its share of highs and low, with the highs being the Ray Bradbury essays, the articles about how an igloo is properly built, mosaics, my God, the mosaics of India being spoken of in a depth that no other piece of written work has truly encapsulated since those glorious days; but now, as it can be clearly seen, time erodes, places, people, and yes, Section 4 of this test; gone are the days of glory in which test takers can revel and enjoy a good reading about the nomenclatures of a particular bug, one of which the name escapes me at this moment, on the eastern island of New Zealand calls home, and it has been replaced by something lacking, in this instruction writer’s eyes, with the likes of an excerpt from a short story written by a no talent writer like Hemingway, who has never met a simple sentence he did not take up and nurture like a small child, or in Ernest’s case, a whiskey bottle.”
- William Faulkner, ACT Instruction Writer
Then the poets get in on the act (no pun intended)…
Section 1 and Section 2 and Section 3 and Section 4 and I are all one.
All atoms of the earth, individual moments but the same.
Section 4 is where we are and who we are.
Our hearts beating as one.
We will sing the song of Section 4 together, melodiously.
Section 3, will be looked upon kindly, but will not be reckon’d at this time.
To live in the moment is to be a part of the earth in its present splendor.
Right now, the time for Section 4 is here and that alone will delight.
- Walt Whitman, ACT Instruction Writer
Because I could not stop for Section 2 –
Section 2 kindly stopped for me –
The classroom will hold 20 students –
And a painful Eternity.
Section 2 slowly drove – At a 45 minute pace
And my calculator I had put away
My labor on Section 1 and leisure too,
For Section 2’s Civility –
- Emily Dickinson, ACT Instruction Writer
Contemporary fiction then reared its counterculture head…
“1st rule of ACT Club: You do not talk during the ACT.
2nd rule of ACT Club: YOU DO NOT TALK DURING THE ACT.
3RD rule of ACT Club: If someone says “stop” or goes limp, taps out the fight is over…and so is the section.
4th rule of ACT Club: Only 25 students to a room.
5th rule of ACT Club: Only one section at a time.
6th rule of ACT Club: No cell phones, no TI 83 calculators.
7th rule of ACT Club: Fights will go on as long as they have to, but you only have a specific amount of time to finish each section.
8th rule of ACT Club: If this is your first time taking the ACT, you HAVE to fight…as well as fill out the online login information before taking the test. Once you have done so, it will be saved for tests you wish to take in the future.”
- Chuck Palahniuk, ACT Instruction Writer
And last, but not least, in this installment, straight from the depths of the mind’s abyss, Pulp Fiction drops by to cheerfully say “ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”…
“The instructions to this test come from a manuscript that was written by a monk who, immediately after writing these cursed words, went mad and sealed himself up in the wall of a monastery that burned to the ground in the late 1500s.
These instructions for the Cult of the ACT came into my possession in November of 1914. I had received a letter from the executioner of my late great uncle’s estate that my presence was requested for the reading of the will, and my great uncle, having no other relatives than that of myself had bequeathed me a large, ornate chest with strange markings on the lid. The chest was sealed; however, the conundrum was that there was no latch or lock that was visible in order to see the contents of the chest. As I gently tapped and felt around the edges of the box, there was a sensation, as if something was scratching at the dark recesses of my mind. As the sensation grew stronger, I could see in my mind’s eye that there were to be four sections of a test and each section would measure the academics of individuals in the areas of grammar, reading, arithmetic, and the sciences. As soon as this occurrence came over me, I suddenly became light headed and swooned.
The chest sat in my study the next three weeks as my fear of the chest soon grew to passive boredom of the chest and soon the odd piece was relegated to that of a conversation piece. It was during this time that a Dr. William Harland contacted me in regards to the chest and wished to make a visit to see the chest in person. Upon examination of the chest, Dr. Harland gasped and I watched at first in curiosity, but that soon turned to horror as the doctor’s eyes rolled back into his head and he began chanting:
‘mglw’nafh Cthulhu Section wgah’naglThree fhtagn Sixtyminutes.’
After uttering this several times, the good doctor clutched his throat, fell over, and started to convulse. I rushed to aid the man, but as quickly as he had been overcome by the mysterious ailments, he was dead.
After months of trial and error, and after not only Dr. Harland’s death, but the strange and mysterious deaths of several of the doctor’s colleagues, I was finally able to open the chest and inside was the manuscript that I have aforementioned. The forbidden knowledge contained in this manuscript harkened to the followers of a long forgotten Old One and gave a list of commandments for followers of this ancient cult. These commandments are as follows:
- Those who are to take up the mantle of the Cult of ACT must vow to remain silent during the ceremony, else be punished by having the soul ripped from the mortal coil.
- The Cult of ACT demands that one must offer complete obedience to the cult and to follow, without question, the order in which the ceremonies of the cult are to be performed.
- To use anything other than the unholy objects of the Cult of ACT is punishable by death.
- A photo ID must be presented in order to gain access to the Cult of ACT.
Because I have learned of this cult, I fear for my own safety and the safety of anyone who has come in contact with me or the manuscript. The Cult of ACT, which I thought to be from a long forgotten past, is alive and thriving in the modern world, and I fear that because of my sharing the contents of the manuscript, that my time is drawing to an end. I fear there is more to this manuscript, but to understand all that has been written is utter madness in itself, and that understanding will only lead to an individual staring into an abyss in which there are terrors that the mortal mind cannot fathom without shattering.”
- H.P. Lovecraft, ACT Instruction Writer
hemingwayish 