Testing

HARRISVILLE -- Like its constellation namesake, Orion Junior High aims to be a shining star of learning and innovative teaching, says the school's proud principal.

CHICAGO -- RaShaunda Dooley was sure that she could pass the Chicago firefighters physical abilities test.

A personal trainer helped her get in shape. And her mother, uncle and cousin, all Chicago firefighters, saw to it that she knew how to drag a hose across the floor and climb a flight of stairs carrying 20-pound gear.

But when Dooley took the test last year, she failed. So did dozens of other athletic women, including marathon runners, triathletes, lifeguards and spin class instructors.

"When I finished the test, I thought I had passed," said Dooley, 27, who put her firefighting aspirations on hold and is now a communications major at Roosevelt University. "My cousin was pinned by my uncle and I was looking forward to being pinned by my mom and keeping up the family tradition."

For many women, physical abilities tests have been the major barrier keeping them from becoming firefighters. While firefighter exams have long been controversial in departments across the country, Chicago has become latest target in a legal battle over whether the test discriminates against women.

SYRACUSE -- The city is conducting a test program with a new radio system that reads water meters from a distance.

OGDEN -- You probably know that schoolchildren who read during summer breaks will retain or gain word skills that will put them far ahead of their peers who take a vacation from books.

CHICAGO -- Today's teens know well the alphabet soup of high-stakes tests -- the SATs, the ACTs, the APs and the flurry of finals at the end of every semester.

But they might not know about a proven new tactic to ease their anxious nerves on test day and even boost their scores.

A team of University of Chicago psychological scientists found that high school and college students who jotted down their worries for 10 minutes before exam time avoided choking under the pressure. In fact, they performed markedly better.

In a study released Thursday in the journal Science, Sian Beilock and Gerardo Ramirez measured the test anxiety of a class of high school freshmen six weeks before their final exams, tests that would be foundational to the academic transcripts they would ultimately send to colleges. On exam day, they asked half the class to write down their concerns about the upcoming test while other students wrote about an unrelated topic.

PROMONTORY -- In a long, skinny building on a Box Elder County hill sat one chilly rocket for most of the summer.