You had to be able to do so many crunches, pushups, etc, in a certain amount of time.
I was a fat kid. If you failed, you couldn’t get Phys. Ed. credit which was required coursework. They made you redo the test until you passed. The only other way out was a medical exemption. I eventually passed, damn near keeling over from the pain my lungs were in from running the mile. It made me resent my gym teacher and cardio, so in hindsight it was a pretty shitty way to encourage physical fitness. I didn’t get not fat until I was like 19.
Damn your school was harsh-- pretty sure they didn’t fail kids at my school in the 80s for failing the presidential test. I could never pass myself despite being an active kid. I was fine on most everything, then always barely squeaked by on the mile, but I could never do any pull-ups (even though the passing number was like 2 I think).
There’s like 10 challenges including running a mile, a half basketball court relay, touching your toes (pictured), etc. There was a “great job” level and a “you did well enough to not fail” level. At my school, the great job level required you to meet a higher level at only 2 challenges and meant you got a free shirt. Other than that, there were no consequences. It was the same kids who did a great job each year, so a small subset of the class would be wearing those shirts all week, then walk home with a new one.
