By Steve Nye
Students can see clearly now, the line is gone.
For the past week and a half, a line of students has strung out the doors of the Testing Center and along the sidewalk toward the Brimhall Building.
The finger of blame was pointed in several directions, but the true reason behind the long lines was simply too many tests scheduled.
?Every time you hit the fifth week of the semester you have a lot of midterms before the drop deadline,? said Linda Shirley, manager of Testing Services.
Shirley said this week of midterms is very similar to the lines created in the BYU Bookstore at the beginning of every semester. Students need to buy books then, and students need to take tests now.
Although Testing Services tries to plan for these influxes of test takers, the forecast numbers don?t always add up right. For example, last Friday the Testing Center anticipated 4,125 tests to be given during the day. However, the number of tests actually taken totaled 5,545. This influx of students taking tests was probably due to General Conference weekend, Shirley said.
She said it is sometimes difficult to accommodate both the teachers giving the tests and the students taking them.
?We don?t want to tell teachers how they have to teach,? Shirley said. ?We don?t want to force them to schedule their tests during certain times.?
When lines do become backed up, the Testing Center calls in the maximum number of employees possible to assist students.
Although the lines are over now, some students were more patient than others during last week?s craze.
Dustin Barros, a freshman from Fresno, Calif., waited in line for 30 minutes.
?I understand that a lot of people need to take tests,? he said.
Dave Kenchington, a graduate student from England, waited 45 minutes to take his accounting test.
?The answers were just barely sticking in my head while I waited,? he said. ?They kept falling out of my head all over the sidewalk.?
Thankfully for students, the biggest lines are over for the rest of the semester, said Shirley, who has worked in Testing Services for 33 years.
?It was a very bad week, but don?t think it is going to be like that all semester,? she said.
Testing Services is working on a new program to forecast the number of tests taken in a day and to improve line conditions for students.