Educated

the angle iron, and it was now stacked—four hundred thousand pounds of it
—in tangled mountains all over the yard.
I woke up every morning at six to study—because it was easier to focus in
the mornings, before I was worn out from scrapping. Although I was still
fearful of God’s wrath, I reasoned with myself that my passing the ACT was
so unlikely, it would take an act of God. And if God acted, then surely my
going to school was His will.
The ACT was composed of four sections: math, English, science and
reading. My math skills were improving but they were not strong. While I
could answer most of the questions on the practice exam, I was slow, needing
double or triple the allotted time. I lacked even a basic knowledge of
grammar, though I was learning, beginning with nouns and moving on to
prepositions and gerunds. Science was a mystery, perhaps because the only
science book I’d ever read had had detachable pages for coloring. Of the four
sections, reading was the only one about which I felt confident.
BYU was a competitive school. I’d need a high score—a twenty-seven at
least, which meant the top fifteen percent of my cohort. I was sixteen, had
never taken an exam, and had only recently undertaken anything like a
systematic education; still I registered for the test. It felt like throwing dice,
like the roll was out of my hands. God would score the toss.
I didn’t sleep the night before. My brain conjured so many scenes of
disaster, it burned as if with a fever. At five I got out of bed, ate breakfast,
and drove the forty miles to Utah State University. I was led into a white
classroom with thirty other students, who took their seats and placed their
pencils on their desks. A middle-aged woman handed out strange pink sheets
I’d never seen before.
“Excuse me,” I said when she gave me mine. “What is this?”
“It’s a bubble sheet. To mark your answers.”
“How does it work?” I said.
“It’s the same as any other bubble sheet.” She began to move away from
me, visibly irritated, as if I were playing a prank.
“I’ve never used one before.”
She appraised me for a moment. “Fill in the bubble of the correct answer,”
she said. “Blacken it completely. Understand?”
The test began. I’d never sat at a desk for four hours in a room full of
people. The noise was unbelievable, yet I seemed to be the only person who