Mechanical Pencil Rule

                For those of you out there who have ever been forced to sit down and take a standardized test, or were required to take the ACT to get into your dream college, or even spent a day taking an AP exam, you know the rule: #2 pencils only. I remember when I was younger, being of middle school-ish time, and we found out we were able to use mechanical pencils on the types of tests listed above. Everyone was so excited- we finally weren’t forced to use those silly wooden pencils that constantly broke, we finally didn’t have to worry about bringing extra in case they did break, and we didn’t have to mess with jammed pencil sharpeners in the middle of the test. Times have changed back though, as we are no longer allowed to use mechanical pencils on these tests.

                Over the weekend, I took the ACT for the first time. I had been planning on taking one mechanical pencil with extra lead inside of it, but it turns out I couldn’t do that anymore. Now I am forced to use the old-fashioned yellow pencils that I’ve always disliked. I was curious as to why we were now forced back into the old ways, and the answer I received surprised me.

                We are not allowed to use mechanical pencils on standardized tests anymore because test proctors think that we have rolled up a small slip of paper with the answers on them and stuck this slip of paper into the inside of the mechanical pencils in order to cheat.

                Really? They think we cheat from rolling up a tiny scrap of paper into our pencils? I’m not sure if one of the proctors just woke up one day to realize that someone could cheat by this method, or if someone out there in the world was dumb enough to try to sneak in test answers by this method. Obviously something had to have gone wrong with a mechanical pencil somewhere along the testing line, but I still am surprised by the fact that we can no longer use them on standardized tests.

                I mean really- my math teacher lets me use mechanical pencils on my tests. I usually get A’s on them, but that doesn’t mean I’m cheating. He knows that I study enough to learn the terms to do well on his tests, and that I’m not just unrolling a slip of paper I had snuck into my mechanical pencil so that I could get all the right answers.

                Standardized tests have enough rules already, so why do they need another? It’s a pencil for goodness sakes, and I don’t think they should really have to enforce that rule on us. At least they provide us with non-mechanical pencils these days- it’s the least they could do with this new rule.

 

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