When we start our school year in August, we all know what we’re preparing for from the start. Passing the End of Course (EOC) Exams is usually the common goal we all share as students, or so I thought.

I figured my classmates would go into this with a mindset ready to pass. However, I was mistaken.

In my testing room, students around me were disrespectful before even beginning the exam process. There were complaints about the seating arrangements as if we were back in the elementary days of sitting by our friends in order to share our favorite crayons.

Of course, followed by countless disruptions throughout the test. Now I don’t at all blame my proctor, the distractions that occurred in the room were not at all their fault.

Students waited until the proctor was turned away to be disruptive. Almost everyone had finished and only one person was left with a test at their desk. However, there was still talking and noises that were anything but respectful to the student who was still trying to finish.

My point with this isn’t to point the finger at people in my testing room, or even my grade level, but to point out the actions of students in general.

Believe it or not, state exams are more than just torture tools sent from the fiery depths of Austin. They are scales meant to measure what we wake up as early as 6 a.m. each morning, every week of every month for 10 months of every year to learn.

Students constantly like to state how excited they are to exit high school, but is that really a reasonable statement to make when we can’t even take a four-hour exam with any seriousness?

Maybe it’s time to evaluate how much we really want to succeed. It’s important not to forget that actions are a reflection of character, and right now many of the teens I know aren’t showing much character.