Some schools hold pep rallies to pump students up. Some serve breakfast to encourage kids to show up. Others tell students if they don't take the test and pass, they won't graduate.

At Bismarck and Century high schools, officials went to less extremes to prepare their seniors for the North Dakota state assessment. Six hours of testing were split up between Tuesday and Wednesday for BHS students, while CHS students are taking the test through today.

BHS principal Tom Hesford said the only thing students taking the test got at his school was a 10-minute break with cookies provided by the National Guard. Penny Wilson, a counselor coordinating the testing at BHS, said teachers administering the tests also gave students a small pep talk before they took the test.

"We encouraged kids to do the best they could," Hesford said. "If I make a big deal out of anything it would be what they learn in their classes. If teachers' jobs depended on it or if a student's graduation depended on it then I would be more fired up."

CHS principal Rita Kelly said students at her school got out of first hour early to eat breakfast, which was provided by the school, National Guard and Bismarck State College.

After eating they were sent off to take the tests, which ended up to be a little after 9 a.m. when the students' biological alarm clocks have them up and running.

Students also were given a pep talk by counselors Monday, which included tips on how to improve their tests.

They were told to get a good night's rest, while being reminded of how to thoughtfully guess on questions they didn't know when taking the tests.

Both Hesford and Kelly said they didn't provide any incentives for kids to show up to take the test because attendance wasn't a concern.

"On a whole, kids in Bismarck are good about getting to school," Hesford said. "We run a 98 percentile of daily attendance. So them showing up is more typical than atypical."

BHS had 413 kids show up on the first day of testing, with only 11 students absent. CHS had 387 of its seniors in school to take the test, with seven absent. Only 5 percent of a school's students can miss the test, or else the state deems them as not making adequate yearly progress.

Both schools changed the testing sites. Instead of being crowded into gyms and auditoriums, students were split into smaller groups and put in classrooms to take the test.

"The gymnasiums are horrible testing environments," Hesford said. "The classes are always a mixture of sophomores, juniors and seniors, which means trying to isolate classes is tricky."

An average of 190 sophomores and juniors had to spend their class time in the commons area at BHS studying because of the testing.

"They are losing two days of instruction time basically," Hesford said. "The teachers are giving them additional homework to do, but they aren't seeing their teachers for two days."

Kelly said sophomores and juniors at CHS still had class, although some classes were moved to different rooms.

Kelly and Hesford said if test scores are back from the state by spring, the score will go on students' transcripts so colleges and employers can see what level they are at in reading and math.