My son is now a senior in high school and he’s been working very hard studying to take a second SAT college exam that will be coming up in October because he needs a higher score to try to get into the private colleges that he’s been looking at.

He has a private tutor and also had some help after school to help him develop strategies for taking the test. The company that provides the private tutoring suggested that he should take a another practice test which is usually given somewhere in the vicinity of where we live. This time, it was going to be at our Holiday Inn in our town, not too far away which took place yesterday.

The test was to start at 2:00pm and end at 6:00pm, which took place in one of the meeting rooms they have there normally used for business networking. I dropped him off about 15 minutes before and then I went home. There were not too many kids there yet.

At about 6:00pm, my son calls me to pick him up. I asked him how it went. He said terrible because there was a kid sitting next to him that kept making clucking sounds throughout the test right after the second hour (my son said he also heard his phone go off, which they are not supposed to have with them, or they should at least turn them off). He said he told the teacher that was there to administer the test when there was a break time to get the kid to stop. She said she would speak to him. When the break time was over and the next part of the text resumed, the clucking sounds coming from this kid also resumed. My son was trying to deal with it, but was not successful, and it was taking a toll on his concentration. There was no other place for him to sit.

When the test was finally over, my son asked the kid what was wrong with him, the kid replied that he has these tics from time to time, and that he can’t stop them. He said it with an attitude according to my son.

When everyone was leaving, the test administrator said to my son, “This is good practice for you because you’re going to have to deal with real life situations like this for the real SAT.”

I wish I could have been there when all this happened. First of all, it is a fact that there has to be absolute silence for this test to take place. I’ll assume this kid has Tourettes Syndrome and I can empathize, but the fact is, is that the kid was disruptive whether or not he has Tourettes Syndrome and should have been removed and put in another room when my son complained.

My son also mentioned this episode to his guidance counselors at school, and they absolutely agreed that the child should have been removed, and that the way this was handled was a disgrace. There are well known rules in writing in regards to this test and silence is one of them. I also think the test administrator should be fired.

I am thinking of reporting the tutoring service to the Better Business Bureau if I don’t get some kind of refund or credit for my son’s suffering. This is a well known tutoring service and I’m surprised at how unprofessional they handled this. This whole SAT thing with the college board is no more than one big money maker for them, and now I have to deal with this on top of paying for this crappy service.

My son could have taken this test at home. There are copies available to everyone, but they insisted that he go to a test site. What a joke.