This Was Only a Test

"This has been a test. It was only a test." The Emergency Broadcast System

I don't know about you, but all the tests I ever took felt like the real thing.  A "test" by definition would be a trial of sorts and not the actual situation being tested. A "test" suggests that it was only practice.  "Don't worry if you fail it; it wasn't the real thing. You'll get another chance." But through all my years of education, a test was an awesome thing. It didn't feel like practice; it felt like the real deal.

I was a good student. Well, actually, I was a very good student. I prepared for exams and approached each one as a sort of end-of-the-world experience. If every test was not enough to worry about, final exams in particular got me worked up. To think that I was about to face a comprehensive semester exam kept me up late. Literally. I stayed up studying until I was convinced I knew the material. I always passed and usually made an A or a B, but when the next final came around, it felt again that my reputation and my future was on the line. It didn't feel like "only a test."

The second hardest test I ever took was not a part of my college education.  In the fall of 1986, I studied for the Series 7 stockbroker exam.  All the information on stocks, bonds and markets was completely new to me. Since I was not working at the time, I set up shop at our kitchen table.  And I treated the study like a job. I clocked in at 8a.m., took a break for lunch and studied until 5p.m. I kept up this schedule for about seven weeks until I took the exam.  I had to wait several weeks for the results. One morning I was sitting in the floor contemplating the meaning of life and feeling sorry for myself.  The phone rang and it was Sarah at IDS Financial Services.  She said, "I'm calling to tell you that you passed the the Series 7.  You made a 77."  I cried with relief and joy. "I'm going to be a financial advisor!"

I failed the most difficult exam that I've ever taken. Three years before taking this test, I had embarked on the arduous process of becoming a CFP-- Certified Financial Planner. This was the most important and prestigious designation in financial services. The media encouraged the public to seek the services of a CFP because of his ethics and professionalism. I very much wanted to be a CFP.. At the time I had to pass six exams and then a comprehensive exam.  I figured if I could pass all six then the comprehensive shouldn't be that much harder.  I was wrong about that.  Each of those six exams was as hard at the Series 7. I failed and retook two of those six exams, but I was finally qualified to take the comprehensive. I had never studied as hard in my life.  I lived with that material for months. I woke up with it, carried it through the day and took it to bed in the evening.  I studied at home, at the local library, in coffee shops and where ever I could find to have a little time to myself and my studies. Not to leave a study stone unturned, three weeks before the exam, I took a two  week cram course in Atlanta. I checked into a hotel near the event location.  I was in class ten days, eight hours a day preparing for the CFP final exam.

The day finally came to take the test.  Actually, the days finally came.  The exam was a two-day, ten hour test. Six hours on Friday and four hours on Saturday.  I used every minute of the time allotted. When I turned it in and left,  I knew two things, 1. I had failed the test and 2. I would never take it again. But one can always hope. Three weeks later when the letter from the College for Financial Planning arrived, I opened it and read the official results. The first word I read was "Failed."  Later my wife said, "When you read the letter, you stopped breathing".

Although it was "only a test", I felt like a failure. I received in the mail a certificate suitable for framing from the College of Financial Planning. In bold letters it stated that from the College of Financial Planning I had completed the education portion for CFP.  So I framed it and hung it on the wall at work. Since colleagues and clients looked at it and thought I was a CFP, it was just confusing to say, "No I'm not." . So I took it down and threw it away. There's no designation of "almost a CFP" regardless of the thousands of hours and dollars I had invested.

When I couldn't knock my discouragement, after six months I quit my job as an advisor and started teaching school. I had a couple of education degrees in my back pocket I had never used, so I brushed them off and put them to work. Not before I passed the Georgia Praxis exams.

Considering a large bunch of sour grapes, the whole idea of CFP is flawed.  The designation doesn't necessarily mean someone is professional and ethical. It means that the student was able to endure rigorous studies and pass insanely difficult exams.  That makes a financial advisor ethical? And I was less ethical for missing five more questions than he did of a ten hour exam?  Oh well.

I'm very glad that in my lifetime the Emergency Broadcast System has only been a test.  I don't ever want to know the consequences of failing that one.