“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
It’s the statement that you never want to hear from your
parents, a private eye detective or a Jehovah’s Witness.
Sadly, this is exactly how the cognitive testing I underwent
began. Cognitive testing involves a series of exercises used to examine ones thought process and their ability to
acquire knowledge and understanding. If you are still unsure as to what cognitive testing is at this point, all that means is that, like myself, you have definitely had some form of it done in the past.
The awkwardness of this medical moment begins in the waiting room when they hand you that "Tell Us a Little Bit About Your Medical History" sheet. It's just me and five other people out there scribbling away as if we are signing up for some kind of medical Match.com. That's the biggest mystery to me. what is everyone else in here for? I could never just outright ask someone because that'd be rude, you know? "So, what's wrong with you?" However, it gets to a certain point, mostly when the guy sitting next to me need to use the backside of their sheet to continue to explain their medical misfortune and I'm thinking "Ummm, can I finish my questionnaire in the hallway?" I could always tell when people got to questions about having back problems, because I'd suddenly see them straighten up like a meerkat for no reason at all. "Wait for it.....wait for it.....there it is!" I've never seen such immediate response to a possible problem quite like that. If we were all honest with ourselves, we would openly admit that the only time we care about our posture is when someone mentions posture.
The testing itself covers a wide range of areas including verbal fluency where I am asked questions such as "Mark, what is the opposite of populated?"
"Ummm, my sixteenth birthday party."
"Mark, tell me a word most similar to argumentative."
"I DON'T WANNA!"
"What is another word for perplex?"
".......for what??
I next had to listen to her tell me a story and then retell the same story back to her word for word. This test presented two major issues for me. Firstly, the pace and volume she used to tell the tale suggested to me that she already had her mind made up about what the results of this test were going to tell her about my level of intellect. She goes "JOHNNY WOKE UP FOR SCHOOL AT 6 A.M. JOHNNY COULD NOT FIND HIS COAT!" Geez lady, was this his favorite coat or are there an orchestra of jackhammers at a construction site outside that my ears aren't picking up?" The story continued with pacing issues and a lack of action that couldn't keep the attention of the most intellectually inclined individuals. It was, in many ways, the Star Wars: Phantom Meance of mental testing. After a minute or so of listening to Johnny's minuscule misadventures of not being able to find his jacket, nearly missing the bus and then racing into school only to realize he had left his homework on the dining room table, I'm sitting there thinking "Someone better get stabbed, cheated on or Darth gosh darn Maul better show up really flippin' quick. We've all been forced to sit through elongated and uneventful stories, but to have this done to me by a medical professional just seemed cruel.
The critiquing went both ways though, because a part of the exam that I did not perform to their liking on was when the doctor said "OK Mark, I want you to name as many animals as you can in thirty seconds, go! So off I went "Arthur, Aslan, Batista, Bugs, Dory, Alvin, Theodore, Simon." Apparently, the "M.D." on this woman's lab coat stood for "Majorly Dispassionate" because she managed to look right passed the creative genius of what I was doing and dryly said "Name real animals please." Although years have gone by since this exam, I'd like you to realize that my answers objectively took a higher level of thinking and also, this story will probably be the only time you see the names Batista and Dory mentioned in the same sentence, unless the two of them go through this same cerebral functionality testing at some point.
I moved on from the viciousness of the verbal to be vehemently blindsided by a visual test of my spatial reasoning skills. This involves manipulating shapes in space to make them fit appropriately. Unlike the approach used by many between a stubborn outlet and a cell phone charger cord, the doctor did not appreciate me just trying to forcefully fuse the shapes together. Unfortunately, all this nonsensical shape-shifting made me think of was the midweek makeovers that my mother would perform on the layout of our home furniture while my dad was away on business. In this equation I played the part of an unwilling moving crew member. Of course, my dad was upset, he comes home and all the furniture had danced around like some off-Broadway production of The Business Trip and The Beast. So this poor woman was probably very confused when she said "Move the shapes to make them fit in the best way" and my response was "I think dad won't like that very much. Remember last time?"
The next intellectual antagonist I came face to face with was the mathematical portion of the test. This was an area everyone in school figured I excelled in simply because I wore glasses, a correlation I have yet to understand to this day. "I can't see where I am going, therefore, I understand numbers" makes absolutely no sense to me, but maybe that's just because my numerical knowledge far outweighs my ability to think rationally. As if everyone who's ever worn glasses just spends their childhood bumping into walls in their living room and just reaches this point of sad seclusion "Well, I guess I'm not going anywhere, so I might as well work on my times tables chart." It's the only impairment with a perceived advantage. I'd never look at someone with their arm in a cast and think "Now there's a guy who's got the Periodic Table of Elements memorized." To fulfill this part of the test, I was told to count backwards from 100 to 0 in increments of 7. Or maybe I did this in order to secure a job as NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell's personal assistant in his quest to disallow any New England Patriot touchdowns that he felt were gained via an unfair advantage such as having deflated footballs, tampering with headphones or throwing the ball to Julian Edelman,
If simple subtraction was considered dipping my toe in my personal pool of paranoia, I was forcibly flopped into the deep end with the next segment which my doctor called Data Checking. which is the ability to look at information to verify its accuracy or identify differences. I was asked to quickly and effectively analyze numbers and written pieces of information on in two groups to make sure data was carried over properly on tables, lines and charts. Interestingly, Tables, Lines and Charts was also the name of the lowest grossing but most intellectually stimulating pay per view event in the history of the WWE. As the younger of two siblings, this test really hit on a touchy spot with me, because as I went through school I ended up having a lot of the same teachers my brother had had before me and given my unique last name, I was quickly and continuously identified as "Michael's Little Brother." My brother and I share the same last name, the same parents, the same birth date two years apart and the same initials. So, as an outsider looking in, it would be easy to treat us the same. However, he was more into math and science and things that would benefit him and usher in a decent paying career in his future. Whereas, I preferred English and Social Studies because I learned vocabulary words such as bumfuzzle and got to say Frigate Raleigh under the safeguard of knowing I was talking about a Revolutionary War vessel. My brother played football and lacrosse and was rather sturdy. I ran cross country and track and was practically transparent. He was in Future Business Leaders of America because it would look good on his college application. I joined Spanish Honors Society, because one night a year we organized an All You Can Eat taco night in the cafeteria. I think that we can all agree if data and numbers send you into hysterics, there's a problem. Halfway through this exercise I proceeded to blurt out "BOTH OF THE CHARTS ARE FINE! SO WHAT, IF ONE IS DIFFERENT? THEY'RE BOTH SPECIAL!!!" This was not the kind of out of the box, emotions driven answer that they were looking for.
Personally, my least favorite ingredient in the days' cocktail of cognitive analysis was the first one that was added during our introduction. I am given three words and throughout our tumultuous time together, she will ask me to repeat the words to her. This part of the test reminded me of that one friend we all have that caught that ONE big fish that ONE time you went out on a boat with them an now you need to hear about it every time you see each other, which in your mind is always far too often. I hated this because for everything that followed, I felt as though I was only half paying attention. Like when you're talking to someone and they have a bunch of snots hanging out of their nose and you're trying to intently listen to them talk about issues they are having with a relationship while you're thinking to yourself "I think I know the problem!" Among the random bits of information that the email of my intellect has chosen to mark as "Important" is that the three words that I was given when I last had this testing done were: Apple, School and Church. I remember that because I wrote them down on my hand when she wasn't looking. Again, I 'd argue that it took a decent amount of brain power to decide to do this, be at peace with it no matter how morally wrong it was and then wait for a moment when she couldn't see me write it. Really, it would've been easy enough to remember though. "OK, two buildings I reluctantly went into as a child and a food I reluctantly ate, got it."
Now. I am in no position to judge anyone's organization and filing skills, but I'm not sure whether they keep a record of what words they've used in the past, because for whatever reason, as I began the testing this time around, anxiously awaiting the trio of trepidation, she says "OK, your three words are apple, school and church." I felt as though I was a member of the band of Grecian soldiers responsible for rolling the wooden horse up to the walls of Troy like "OK, we give up. Here's your surrender present, bye!" I tried to stifle my excitement. This feeling was like when you were in school and you had a math test on a topic where you and your classmates had unanimously decided to check out for the chapter. So the teacher agrees to do a couple of examples on the board prior to handing out the test. Instead of easing our exam anxiety, these hieroglyphics only served to heighten the awareness of our impending "F." Recognizing a hopeless errand when she saw one, our teacher wiped her hands of responsibility like Pontius Pilate before the crucifixion and retreated to her desk accidentally leaving Playbook to Pythagorean Theorem perfection unerased and available, right in front of us.
Should we have said something to the teacher? Of course. Did we say anything? Absolutely not! This one kid in our class, Aaron, raises his hand to tell the teacher and our entire class that, indirectly, he valued his letter grade more than his life. Everyone else shot him a look like "Aaron, so help me, if you screw this up for us, the second we are off of school grounds, you will be in the ground." In the 6 years since high school, I have encountered crying children in public and an overly confident brother who bet me that Kansas City was located in Kansas, but the valuable lesson I learned that day that could not be taught in any textbook was that sometimes in life, it's best to keep your mouth shut. Do you want to know how many times the topic of life regrets pops up and I've used the phrase "Man, I really wish I had paid attention when my teacher was talking to us about Pythagorean Theorem?" Zero!
This doctor wanted me to remember the words apple, school and church and I can promise you, they will be in the back of my mind until the day I die.
The awkwardness of this medical moment begins in the waiting room when they hand you that "Tell Us a Little Bit About Your Medical History" sheet. It's just me and five other people out there scribbling away as if we are signing up for some kind of medical Match.com. That's the biggest mystery to me. what is everyone else in here for? I could never just outright ask someone because that'd be rude, you know? "So, what's wrong with you?" However, it gets to a certain point, mostly when the guy sitting next to me need to use the backside of their sheet to continue to explain their medical misfortune and I'm thinking "Ummm, can I finish my questionnaire in the hallway?" I could always tell when people got to questions about having back problems, because I'd suddenly see them straighten up like a meerkat for no reason at all. "Wait for it.....wait for it.....there it is!" I've never seen such immediate response to a possible problem quite like that. If we were all honest with ourselves, we would openly admit that the only time we care about our posture is when someone mentions posture.
The testing itself covers a wide range of areas including verbal fluency where I am asked questions such as "Mark, what is the opposite of populated?"
"Ummm, my sixteenth birthday party."
"Mark, tell me a word most similar to argumentative."
"I DON'T WANNA!"
"What is another word for perplex?"
".......for what??
I next had to listen to her tell me a story and then retell the same story back to her word for word. This test presented two major issues for me. Firstly, the pace and volume she used to tell the tale suggested to me that she already had her mind made up about what the results of this test were going to tell her about my level of intellect. She goes "JOHNNY WOKE UP FOR SCHOOL AT 6 A.M. JOHNNY COULD NOT FIND HIS COAT!" Geez lady, was this his favorite coat or are there an orchestra of jackhammers at a construction site outside that my ears aren't picking up?" The story continued with pacing issues and a lack of action that couldn't keep the attention of the most intellectually inclined individuals. It was, in many ways, the Star Wars: Phantom Meance of mental testing. After a minute or so of listening to Johnny's minuscule misadventures of not being able to find his jacket, nearly missing the bus and then racing into school only to realize he had left his homework on the dining room table, I'm sitting there thinking "Someone better get stabbed, cheated on or Darth gosh darn Maul better show up really flippin' quick. We've all been forced to sit through elongated and uneventful stories, but to have this done to me by a medical professional just seemed cruel.
The critiquing went both ways though, because a part of the exam that I did not perform to their liking on was when the doctor said "OK Mark, I want you to name as many animals as you can in thirty seconds, go! So off I went "Arthur, Aslan, Batista, Bugs, Dory, Alvin, Theodore, Simon." Apparently, the "M.D." on this woman's lab coat stood for "Majorly Dispassionate" because she managed to look right passed the creative genius of what I was doing and dryly said "Name real animals please." Although years have gone by since this exam, I'd like you to realize that my answers objectively took a higher level of thinking and also, this story will probably be the only time you see the names Batista and Dory mentioned in the same sentence, unless the two of them go through this same cerebral functionality testing at some point.
I moved on from the viciousness of the verbal to be vehemently blindsided by a visual test of my spatial reasoning skills. This involves manipulating shapes in space to make them fit appropriately. Unlike the approach used by many between a stubborn outlet and a cell phone charger cord, the doctor did not appreciate me just trying to forcefully fuse the shapes together. Unfortunately, all this nonsensical shape-shifting made me think of was the midweek makeovers that my mother would perform on the layout of our home furniture while my dad was away on business. In this equation I played the part of an unwilling moving crew member. Of course, my dad was upset, he comes home and all the furniture had danced around like some off-Broadway production of The Business Trip and The Beast. So this poor woman was probably very confused when she said "Move the shapes to make them fit in the best way" and my response was "I think dad won't like that very much. Remember last time?"
The next intellectual antagonist I came face to face with was the mathematical portion of the test. This was an area everyone in school figured I excelled in simply because I wore glasses, a correlation I have yet to understand to this day. "I can't see where I am going, therefore, I understand numbers" makes absolutely no sense to me, but maybe that's just because my numerical knowledge far outweighs my ability to think rationally. As if everyone who's ever worn glasses just spends their childhood bumping into walls in their living room and just reaches this point of sad seclusion "Well, I guess I'm not going anywhere, so I might as well work on my times tables chart." It's the only impairment with a perceived advantage. I'd never look at someone with their arm in a cast and think "Now there's a guy who's got the Periodic Table of Elements memorized." To fulfill this part of the test, I was told to count backwards from 100 to 0 in increments of 7. Or maybe I did this in order to secure a job as NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell's personal assistant in his quest to disallow any New England Patriot touchdowns that he felt were gained via an unfair advantage such as having deflated footballs, tampering with headphones or throwing the ball to Julian Edelman,
If simple subtraction was considered dipping my toe in my personal pool of paranoia, I was forcibly flopped into the deep end with the next segment which my doctor called Data Checking. which is the ability to look at information to verify its accuracy or identify differences. I was asked to quickly and effectively analyze numbers and written pieces of information on in two groups to make sure data was carried over properly on tables, lines and charts. Interestingly, Tables, Lines and Charts was also the name of the lowest grossing but most intellectually stimulating pay per view event in the history of the WWE. As the younger of two siblings, this test really hit on a touchy spot with me, because as I went through school I ended up having a lot of the same teachers my brother had had before me and given my unique last name, I was quickly and continuously identified as "Michael's Little Brother." My brother and I share the same last name, the same parents, the same birth date two years apart and the same initials. So, as an outsider looking in, it would be easy to treat us the same. However, he was more into math and science and things that would benefit him and usher in a decent paying career in his future. Whereas, I preferred English and Social Studies because I learned vocabulary words such as bumfuzzle and got to say Frigate Raleigh under the safeguard of knowing I was talking about a Revolutionary War vessel. My brother played football and lacrosse and was rather sturdy. I ran cross country and track and was practically transparent. He was in Future Business Leaders of America because it would look good on his college application. I joined Spanish Honors Society, because one night a year we organized an All You Can Eat taco night in the cafeteria. I think that we can all agree if data and numbers send you into hysterics, there's a problem. Halfway through this exercise I proceeded to blurt out "BOTH OF THE CHARTS ARE FINE! SO WHAT, IF ONE IS DIFFERENT? THEY'RE BOTH SPECIAL!!!" This was not the kind of out of the box, emotions driven answer that they were looking for.
Personally, my least favorite ingredient in the days' cocktail of cognitive analysis was the first one that was added during our introduction. I am given three words and throughout our tumultuous time together, she will ask me to repeat the words to her. This part of the test reminded me of that one friend we all have that caught that ONE big fish that ONE time you went out on a boat with them an now you need to hear about it every time you see each other, which in your mind is always far too often. I hated this because for everything that followed, I felt as though I was only half paying attention. Like when you're talking to someone and they have a bunch of snots hanging out of their nose and you're trying to intently listen to them talk about issues they are having with a relationship while you're thinking to yourself "I think I know the problem!" Among the random bits of information that the email of my intellect has chosen to mark as "Important" is that the three words that I was given when I last had this testing done were: Apple, School and Church. I remember that because I wrote them down on my hand when she wasn't looking. Again, I 'd argue that it took a decent amount of brain power to decide to do this, be at peace with it no matter how morally wrong it was and then wait for a moment when she couldn't see me write it. Really, it would've been easy enough to remember though. "OK, two buildings I reluctantly went into as a child and a food I reluctantly ate, got it."
Now. I am in no position to judge anyone's organization and filing skills, but I'm not sure whether they keep a record of what words they've used in the past, because for whatever reason, as I began the testing this time around, anxiously awaiting the trio of trepidation, she says "OK, your three words are apple, school and church." I felt as though I was a member of the band of Grecian soldiers responsible for rolling the wooden horse up to the walls of Troy like "OK, we give up. Here's your surrender present, bye!" I tried to stifle my excitement. This feeling was like when you were in school and you had a math test on a topic where you and your classmates had unanimously decided to check out for the chapter. So the teacher agrees to do a couple of examples on the board prior to handing out the test. Instead of easing our exam anxiety, these hieroglyphics only served to heighten the awareness of our impending "F." Recognizing a hopeless errand when she saw one, our teacher wiped her hands of responsibility like Pontius Pilate before the crucifixion and retreated to her desk accidentally leaving Playbook to Pythagorean Theorem perfection unerased and available, right in front of us.
Should we have said something to the teacher? Of course. Did we say anything? Absolutely not! This one kid in our class, Aaron, raises his hand to tell the teacher and our entire class that, indirectly, he valued his letter grade more than his life. Everyone else shot him a look like "Aaron, so help me, if you screw this up for us, the second we are off of school grounds, you will be in the ground." In the 6 years since high school, I have encountered crying children in public and an overly confident brother who bet me that Kansas City was located in Kansas, but the valuable lesson I learned that day that could not be taught in any textbook was that sometimes in life, it's best to keep your mouth shut. Do you want to know how many times the topic of life regrets pops up and I've used the phrase "Man, I really wish I had paid attention when my teacher was talking to us about Pythagorean Theorem?" Zero!
This doctor wanted me to remember the words apple, school and church and I can promise you, they will be in the back of my mind until the day I die.
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