Why Did We Ever Learn Cursive?

>> 16 June 2011

Took the GRE on Tuesday -- I'm excited about the future opportunities this will allow me to have; but mostly, I'm just that it's over and I can go back to doing things I enjoy (reading, blogging, nothing) without feeling guilty that I'm not cramming worthless words into my brain that I will never use in a normal conversation.

They're quite strict about admission to these tests (understandably), but all the signed forms and presenting of IDs and having my mugshot taken made it feel like I was being granted access to Area 51.

Oddly enough, perhaps the most formidable challenge to my success on the exam came before it even started. I had to fill out a form on which I gave my agreement to not disclose details about the test and say I understood the testing rules. I then had to copy down an entire paragraph, verbatim,to verify that I understood the agreement. In cursive. When was the last time you wrote in cursive? I have no recollection of the last time I wrote in this archaic script. I'm pretty sure I looked like I had arthritic hands as I unnaturally and uncomfortably fumbled my way through writing an entire paragraph in cursive English. The end product probably looked like a drunk 3-year old's attempt at writing a statement. I'm surprised they admitted me to take the exam, but I suppose they took some pity on me since I did pay them $160 to take it.

2 ideas preached:

John Fri Jun 24, 10:41:00 PM EDT  

Oh JD! I know how you feel. I took my GRE last summer, and that whole cursive paragraph caught me by surprise, as well as how tight security was. But yeah, my cursive, looked like I was back in third grade learning it. I was writing it so big that I think I ran out of room and had to write some in the margins. What a relief when that was done!

gweenbrick Sat Jul 09, 06:50:00 PM EDT  

Hey,cool! I did a blog post about this exact thing. That paragraph was killer....
http://www.gweenbrick.com/2011/06/you-not-going-anywhere.html

Cool blog

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