Fire drill

Definitions

1. An organized practice to prepare occupants of an office, school or other public building for evacuation in the event of a fire.
2. Any pointless, unproductive, useless, or chaotic activity.
   US, idiomatic
3. A fire-starting tool consisting of a wooden rod and some primitive means of rapidly rotating the rod on a flat surface like a drill until tinder can be ignited.

Equivalents

Examples

“Our teacher said that will have⟳ a fire drill today.”

“Since they've changed the standards again, our previous efforts now just amount to a fire drill.”

“There is no machine on earth so potent, yet so simple and elegant, as the two sticks of the Native American fire drill;”

CEFR level