Examinee Biography

SPOILER: If by chance you are in a Tests and Measurements course at a Midwestern university right now, do not read this!

Note: This is a fake biography about a character I made up (influenced by a certain literature series) for my psych course where we are currently studying personality testing. It is a background, history, attributes, and motivation behind this character.

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I am a 17-year old girl who lives in England. I have long light blond hair, bright blue eyes, and very fair skin. I wear contacts most of the time but I have a pair of glasses and I have my ears and nose pierced. I’ve never officially had a boyfriend but I suspect many boys to have had crushes on me in the past. My parents come from a German background but I think I have some ancestors from Sweden too. I am average in height and weight for a girl my age (5’5” and 130lbs). I believe in a God but I’m not quite sure how much power he actually has over what happens in the world. I live at home with my parents during the summers and holidays and attend a boarding school in the south of England the rest of the year. My school is very well know in certain circles but often outsiders say they never even knew it existed. I am an only child but have many pets to keep me company when I’m at home. I have eight animals in total and three plants ranging from cats and kinkachoos (a type of small, adorable monkey) to daisies that I have grown into decorative chains as they mature.

Both my parents work for a living. My dad is an editor for a small magazine called The Scribbler about new inventions and the stories behind the people who invent them. My mom works as the head organizer for a non-profit organization that aims to give voice to the plights of the kinkachoos. The two kinkachoos that I have at home are in recovery from accidents they had while swinging between two very far apart trees and hopefully will be integrated back into their habitats within the year. Since neither of my parents have very high paying jobs we’ve always had to watch our budget. No fancy cars, no huge, new home, and no gym memberships. We did actually get very luck with our house. My mom inherited it from her great grandmother after she got married and we’ve been able to fix it up a bit. Our house is a very old patched together three-story with an attic and basement. Thanks to my dad’s handiwork the staircases no longer squeak and the living room has carpet. But one thing still persists. Strangely enough it was built leaning slightly to the right when viewed from the front. You can hardly tell but as it was constructed taller than it is wide, at a certain distance it resembles a birthday candle poorly placed atop a crooked cake. We have a garden and tire swing out back and a winding driveway through a tunnel of tall trees out front.

If someone were to ask me what types of things or people have made me who I am today I think I would have to say my dad and my school. I am very proud of my dad, he started up his magazine while at university and researched everything on his own, interviewed interesting people and published it free of charge with just the hope that one day it would grow into something bigger and better. After years of editing and interviewing he was able to start selling copies of the magazine and was able to hire others to help. While it is nothing in comparison to Science and Technology Today it still holds its own among a smaller population of readers. And for that I’m proud of my dad.

The other thing that has greatly shaped me as a person has been attending my boarding school, Gryffindale. I love my school and the people there so much, they have taught me how to stand up for others in need as well as encourage me to pursue my own dreams of becoming the editor my dad’s magazine when he retires. My friends are all from different backgrounds and I love getting to know their families through their stories. Unfortunately there is a very large divide between social groups at my school. I would have to say I’m in the “funky/artsy nerd” group but even though there’s everything from lacrosse teams and musicians to punk and kids who think they can do magic, complete with wands. But really, the huge divide is between a group of students who think they’re better than everyone else because their parents all have stock in the company that makes our food called SoQuexo, and the entire rest of the school. It’s like something out of an epic book plot. For some reason this is a huge money making stock and with money comes power and influence so those parents make up a good 60% of our school board. Recently my friends and I have formed an afterschool group to research and uncover the reason why these parents are so formative in how the school is run. We call it Rumbleroarf’s Army after our headmaster who we suspect is not one of the SoQuexo stockholders and wants to quell the parents’ power as well. I hope that my experience in this group will help me get involved with a career in editing or publishing.

Apart from my after school activities I very much enjoy knitting and walking through the woods on summer days. Kitting has always been a way for me to calm down and relax as well as use my creative spirit to make my mom and dad more scarves than they could wear all winter. I love walking through the woods because it also lets me relax and contemplate my life and absorb all the beauty in the trees and grass. Occasionally I’ll come across a chipmunk and watch it scramble to and fro until it leaps down a burrow. I also love hunting for faerie rings. Faerie rings are circles of delicate flowers placed by faeries to let humans know they had visited that spot. I believe that faeries exist and have many pictures and stories to prove it. When I was younger I invented a faerie catching device that my dad featured in his magazine under the article title, “Most Magical” invention idea. Unfortunately my idea never quite made it to production as my outlined drawings mysteriously disappeared. I suspect nargels. They are creatures that move things around after you’re sure you know where you had the item last. Often your stuff ends up in the most random places. I once found my shoes sitting on the windowsill in the attic!

Some people might say that believing in faeries and nargles are weaknesses in my character or my outlook on life. But I strongly disagree, why choose something so minute and non-consequential? Though I don’t like to admit it, my weaknesses lay more in the area of backing down from intimidating people. But as you can see through my after school group I’m currently working towards being more comfortable with standing my ground and not letting people walk over me just because they don’t understand me or think I’m less of a voice because my parents don’t have SoQuexo stock.

On the flipside, I think I have a very strong creative and artistic side to me. I am able to see the possibilities of a situation or person, I can think outside the box. I have an intuition towards what ideas will work (though I have to admit a fail on the faerie catching device, that didn’t quite pan out as I had hoped) and I can create something from nothing and make it look good to. I think I am also a good encourager to others and someone who always sees the sunny side of life despite obvious rainclouds. This is the strongest part of my personality, my optimism.

And optimism is what will have to get me through the next year if I don’t find a part time job. I am currently without a job but plan on applying to a few art stores in the area near my school as well as a couple newspapers and magazines as a young writer. I do help my dad with his magazine occasionally when I’m at home but I don’t get paid for it.

In short I’m a normal 17-year old. I have a great group of school friends that support me and value courage, bravery, loyalty, nerve and chivalry. I am a girl who has hopes and dreams, questions and concerns, and is aiming to find solutions to the world’s problems. Or at least starting with my high school.

Thanks for reading!