I was always a great test taker in school. I actually liked tests ... certain types of tests, anyway, the kinds where you regurgitate facts like names and dates or write essays on a particular subject. When math tests became about looking at a cone and figuring out its volume, I might as well have been asked to conjugate Martian verbs. Not in my wheelhouse, let's say.

But I never got nervous about tests, as long as I was prepared. I never understood those people who got panic attacks, blanked out, or broke out into hives at the idea of a test.

Until, that is, I watched my son get tested last week.

He's 3 1/2 and he had his first hour-long standardized test. Yes, standardized testing for a 3-year-old. And the hour-long session was just the FIRST part of his testing -- he had two more parts of the test after that.

I was asked to go with him, to help keep him on task and engaged as he completed a series of tests on everything from stacking cups and blocks to writing letters. He started out doing really well. In fact, when he copied three letters just as they were written on the page, my jaw dropped. I didn't know he could do that!

Twenty minutes into the session, though, Billy was going all "wet noodle" on me, sliding out his chair, as though his spine were made of Jell-o. He crawled under the table a couple of times, started reciting "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown" at top volume to drown his teacher out when she asked a question about the color of a carrot. Unfortunately, there are no bonus points for informing the teacher that Leo Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace" and that his wife, Sofia, copied it out seven times by candlelight. Nope, you've still gotta know the color of a carrot.

I tried a trick I learned from his OT (occupational therapist) and took a break to do some "wheelbarrow walking." If you aren't familiar with this move, it's when you lift the child's feet in your hands, and they use their hands to walk across the floor. We would wheelbarrow walk around the room a few times, and Billy would settle down enough to be able to point to a picture of an ice cream cone or draw a couple of vertical lines. Then we'd hit the floor again, and wheelbarrow walk for a few minutes.

Suddenly, I had visions of myself attending medical school with him one day, and wheelbarrow walking him through the lab at Harvard until he felt comfortable enough to go back to dissecting his corpse or injecting lab rats with something. And I'll do it too. I'll probably be in my sixties, and he may have to carry me around campus in a big backpack, but that's probably good therapy for him as well.

Anyway, after an hour of the standardized testing, something in Billy just flipped and he was done. He was beyond done. He was overwhelmed, confused, exhausted emotionally and mentally.

And he started biting himself. For the first time ever, he started doing this incredibly self-destructive behavior and my heart just broke for him. What had I done to him? Why had I agreed to subject him to this torture? How did I not see that he was unraveling?

His teacher, as patient and loving a pre-K teacher as we could ever hope for, immediately ended the test. She said she could break up the rest of it, do some of it outside, or ask him a few questions here and there when he was in a better state of mind.

When I talked to another therapist about it later, she asked me, "What is this testing for?"

I had no idea.

"Did you give permission for him to be tested?"

I had no idea. If they asked, I probably did. I never occurs to me to say no. I'm a rule follower. Remember, I like tests?

After asking several people, I still have no idea how this test data will be used. It's not used to determine whether he qualifies for services. Apparently, that won't be re-evaluated until before he starts kindergarten. Best guess, it's some kind of progress test.

But that makes no sense either. Billy has five therapists, a full-time classroom teacher, two teacher's aides; we have an IEP, regular progress reports on his IEP goals and frequent parent-teacher conferences. No one is in any doubt as to Billy's progress -- except, apparently, me, because I had no friggin' clue that he could write letters or fasten buttons. He's been holding out on me.

Long story short, I've learned a valuable lesson about standardized testing. There's still a lot I don't understand about it. There's still a lot that frustrates me about the existence of standardized testing -- even though I know that in some ways it's a necessary evil and I don't really have a viable alternative to suggest, considering the resources, and lack thereof, that our public school system is dealing with.

I'm happy to report that Billy was totally fine once the test was over. When I led him back to his classroom, he looked in the door at the other kids seated for circle time, spread his arms wide and called, "All Billy's friends!" as though he were greeting them after an absence of much longer than an hour.

The next time I'm asked about testing Billy, I'll have a whole host of questions about the need for, use of, and length of the test. I'll also pay much closer attention to my child during the testing. Rather than fantasizing about him thanking me personally when he wins his Academy Award one day for Best Director of the highest grossing film of all time, or about how I'm going to get his limited diet of mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets on the space shuttle -- I'll try to indulge my parental fantasies a little less and watch my child a lot more closely in the here and now.