Culture shock

"Io ci ripenserei a questa qua," the young man tells me, pointing to number four, by which I have put a little question mark.

I am taking the CILS test (Certificato dell'Italiano come Lingua Straniera) at an obscure education center near the Reggio train station, and the proctors, as far as I can tell, are wandering around the room to chat about people's answers.

I glance up at him, unsure. Is he teasing? Being funny? He's been standing over me for the past two minutes, reading over my shoulder and generally making me nervous. He's very cute and his shirt is unbuttoned to halfway down his chest - judging solely by his appearance, he seems like the kind of guy that would tease. He throws me a friendly grin and continues:

"Le altre vanno bene, pero'." He indicates the other two where I had put question marks, intending to go back and ponder them some more if I had time. Just as he says this, I hear his fellow proctor (also male, cute, and half-unbuttoned) informing the person behind me that "dalle" is spelled with two Ls. "Ricordati: le preposizioni articolate..."

I limit the visible evidence of the exam-taking-habits short circuit that this produces in my brain to a quick raise of the eyebrows and mumble "grazie".

The two proctors proceed to stand at the front of the classroom and debate the answers to the grammar section in loud whispers before going around and distributing more hints. During the written section, he all but offers to proofread my work.

We are so not in Kansas anymore.

Or, um, anywhere else in the US - it's not like I've ever even been to Kansas. But, anyway... yeah. Mild shock. In America they throw you out of the testing center for so much as looking up to check the time if you have the misfortune to accidently slide your eyes past anywhere that could conceivably be construed as someone else's paper. (Not that I have personal experience - after a lifetime of standardized testing in the US, you pretty much perfect the "eyes closed, glance at clock, eyes closed, back to paper" routine). But still. The strictness with testing in the US. It is intense. I couldn't even have tissues with me when I took the MCAT. God only knows what they figured I could have done to cheat with tissues, but... anyway. Back to Italy.

First I laughed a bit on the inside. Then I felt a bit guilty. Then I remembered how my high school students kept breaking out in conversation during the final exam I gave them (!) and it's not really so shocking. That's just how it's done, I guess.

In any case, provided that the people who distribute i voti are satisfied with my 2-3 minute rambling monologue on plastic surgery (don't ask; I was feeling more than a little flustered), I should have a C1 level certification in Italian sometime in the next year. Yay.