Liberal Talk Radio

Another example of how far behind the times our government is getting …

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to close a chapter in my life by taking the Foreign Service Written Examination (the “Foreign Service Exam,” or “FSWE”).

Now, in theory, my G’town education was designed 100% to prepare me for this test. And as a Hoya, I always heard tales about just how brutal this thing was.

Some context. A few months ago, employed by venerable cultural institution in its death throes, I was starting to feel like my future employment prospects were pretty bleak. Broke, and at least a year and a half away from that port of refuge called “grad school,” I began to contemplate working (gasp!) for the government. I figured my choices were the Army or the State Department. For what should be obvious reasons, I opted for the later.

The first step for a career in the Foreign Service is taking the FSWE. As luck would have it, my timing was perfect. I signed up for the test and began desparately looking for other options.

Well, fast forward a couple of months and I’m glad to have an awesome new job. Still, the test date was coming up. What should I do? Since my job is only temporary, I decided to take the test, but thought I’d use it as a bit of an experiment. Expecting a bunch of questions about world events, geography, and econ — stuff I read every day anyway — I figured I wouldn’t study at all, just to see how well I’d do.

A very good decision, as it turns out.

When I got to the test site yesterday morning, I was shocked to see about 150 people already there waiting. There are probably five test sites in the Seattle area, so I figured there’d be maybe 25 to 30 people or so. Guess I underestimated either the strength of the continuing recession or the desire of Seattle’s youth to get out of this very isolated place. Needless to say, not many of my follow examinees resembled the uber-prepped youth of the School of Foreign Service, but I digress.

The test, as it turns out, was a marathon, four sections in six hours, including sections on “job knowledge,” “essay,” “biographical questionnaire,” and “English expression.” Reasonable enough. But here’s where it gets ridiculous.

Not really knowing what to expect (I literally studied not one bit, not even so much as to look up what kind of questions there would be), I was first shocked to see that it was an old school “fill in the bubbles with your number 2 pencils” kind of test. I mean, ten years ago — TEN YEARS AGO! — the GRE had already begun moving to a fully computerized system. But, okay, so State doesn’t have money to pay for a new test system, what with paying for those great PowerPoints Powell took to the U.N. and all … Fair enough.

But then there were the questions themselves. IIRC, there were about five questions that had anything at all to do with international affairs. Remember these are all multiple choice, too. Questions like “Mao Zedong was a revolutionary leader in which country?” are reasonable enough, if softballs. And just five of them, that was it.

Fully three questions were about the War Powers Act. Important legislation, to be sure, but 3% of the test? I’m expecting questions about the Berlin conference and Kyoto, and I get the War Powers Act?

About ten questions were about U.S. government processes, stuff like “A treaty needs be ratified by whom?” Again, fair enough, but I’m still thinking it’s going to be international affairs.

There was one question that was baldly political. “George H.W. Bush passed landmark legislation dramatically increasing opportunities available to: women, African Americans, the disabled, Vietnam Veterans.” Uh, er, I, uh … Couldn’t think of a single damn one. In retrospect, I guess they meant the ADA, but still …

There were some really stupid questions about computers that sounded like they were written in 1992 (”The device that connects a computer to a phone line is called a:” … I didn’t see DSL adapter anywhere, so I picked modem).

Finally, and most ridiculously of all, fully half of the questions were about management theory and technique. WTF?! And stupid questions, to boot. “When confronted by an irate employee, the best way to deal with it is:” I didn’t see “Jump under a desk and call security,” so I picked “Focus on the problem, not the person.” Another question asked if I’d ever used the “DeKuyper” technique or some such for solving interpersonal problems. Huh?! Usually, I like to talk to my staff and find out what’s going on and then proceed … my guess is that that’s what this technique is, but, still …

So I was a little pissed already moving on to the subsequent sections. The essay forced me to dig deep for a writing style I haven’t used in a decade (classic Intro-Body-Conclussion with Point/Counterpoint technique … no one in any kind of industry that I’ve ever worked in professionally actually uses this writing style … it’s archaic to the point of silliness … I almost just put in some bullet points to be an asshole, but then I thought if I was spending the time, I might as well at least try).

The “biographical information” section was even worse. Truly, it was more of an intelligence test (”In a stressful situation, would your friends say you handle it a) very calmly, b) somewhat calmly, c) more or less calmly, d) not calmly, e) very frantically”). It included about 30 ridiculous mini-essays where, in about 3 small lines of space, examinees were ask to explain, for instance, their leadership experience in their previous four jobs.

Finally, the English expression part of the test came. This was a very lite version of a standard SAT-style reading and grammar test. Predictable, and dumb.

On the whole, I felt like I completely wasted six hours of my life taking this test. And what’s more, I have no idea what kind of good, solid, actionable information State actually thinks it gets from this BS. If the test was truly an honest assessment of the kind of skills a person needs to start a diplomatic career, then we’re all in serious, serious, trouble. I wouldn’t necessarily hire a person who passed this test to do my dishes, let alone help make U.S. foreign policy. And yet still somehow it weeds people out …

I have to admit that, even given the silliness of all this, I still don’t really expect to pass. Among other things, my handwriting is terrible. I might’ve written a new Declaration of Independence in the essay section, but I doubt that any test scorer is going to spend enough time deciphering my chicken-scrawls to figure that out. Also, it’s clear to me that it’s possible to study directly for this test with an appropriate book. I didn’t, so I’m sure I missed a lot of the more ridiculous questions just because I honestly didn’t know what the “right” answer is in the context of the test.

At least this finally closes a chapter for me. For ten years now I’ve thought that maybe I should’ve just done what I was “supposed” to do after college. Now I’ve given it the college try, and it’s one door that I’ll be thankful to have closed behind me.