Dream Log: Civil-Service Exam for Top-Level Post

I dreamed I was taking an exam to attempt to qualify for a Federal job. What job exactly it was, was not specified in the dream, but judging from the exam, it must have been some sort of top-level Secret Service Jedi ninja post. It was the present day. There was a distinctly cheerful, upbeat, Biden-administration, the-Dragon-has-been-slain vibe about the place. COVID did not exist. I was my real age, 59 years old. Most of the applicants appeared to be one-third to one-half my age.

I got there late, after the test had started. Whatever explanation of things might have been given before the test started was not going to be repeated for my benefit. I was just given a booklet in which to mark my answers, and let loose. 

There were about 1,000 questions under glass on tabletops in the exam room. The questions were numbered, and it seemed clear that the later questions built upon the earlier ones, but we were not required to answer the questions in any particular order. Some of the questions were about history, some about science, some were mathematical or had to do with formal logic, some were ethical, some were a combination of the above, some were trick questions, and some were in French. 

 What bothered me above all about the questions was the French -- neither my first, nor my second, nor my third choice for a second language. Not my fourth either.

Our behavior was being observed as we took the test. Cheating in the conventional test-taking sense did not seem to be prohibited, as the test-takers were openly helping each other. Perhaps, I thought, the way in which we observed one another was being observed. Perhaps we were rewarded, when grading the test, for choosing to work with those of the others best-suited for the jobs we were all applying for.

But, I reasoned, I did not KNOW what sort of criteria were being used to judge us. I didn't know what sort of instructions the others had been given -- indeed, I didn't even know whether they had been given any instructions at all. So I figured the best I could do was answer the questions and behave like a decent human being. I was still in the middle of the test when I woke up.