Henry Imler May 17th, 2008

The semester is almost over.  I have done my language finals and turned in my final papers.  Now all that is left is… grading.  I am done with the extra credit papers, the group projects, and the last two rounds of weekly reaction papers for my classes.  Now all that is left is are my student’s tests, or as I like to call them, “150 essays each of which is on one of six possible topics.”  Yeah, I am not good at naming them.  My secondary choice was: “that pile of blue damnation.”

Anyway, for you undergrads out there, allow me to give you some advice on writing essay tests.

1. I know your english teacher said that a sentance can be a paragraph - it isn’t.  When the professor says that two paragraphs will do, do not give me 5 total sentances.  That is the quickest way to get a 2 out of 10 on a essay question.  Actually - do give me 5 sentances - that makes things easier to grade.
2. If we ask you to bring a blue book, bring a blue book, a few sheets of unstapled paper will not cut it.  You are lucky I am not your professor - I’d make you go buy a blue book and hope you have enough time to finish the test.
3. Stay on topic.  If the question asks you to talk about X, you had better talk about X.
4. For the love of your grade - write legibly.
5. Go a head and take the time to write clearly.  The following is why: Test Question: Given what we talked about in class, how would you define religion?  Would you categorize indigenous religions as monotheistic, polytheistic, or pantheistic?  If not, answer why they do not work and describe and alternate framework.  (This question was not written by me.  I lobbied for the last sentence, however)
   

   Student’s Answer:  My definition of religion is the information that people originate.  The information possessing functions to reproduce and to transmit itself through people would be consequently regarded as the concept called God.  Because wide varieties of beings can be explained by natural selection as far as the universe, I would like to analyze indigenous religion as Atheism.  In short, God had been created by meme.  If you think quickly pervasive email on a scandal by putting my own interaction into an example, it would be simple to understand.  Although it is simply typed information, it psychologically influences a reader to tell its information to others.  By considering people as a computer to manage information, the email seems to function as a program.  Moreover, it is likened to a computer virus.

   Commentary: Wow.  Most people decided to try to define what religion is and then show the problems with that definition for the first part.  For the second part most went ahead and followed the content of the class and talked about how each category can describe aspects of ind rels, but not the totality of the rel system.  yadda, yadda, yadda.  This person decided to go with a different route.

   This is how I am grading it:
   Points at stake 10
   Points off for making no damn sense and not coming close to approaching the question: 10 - 14= -4
   Points earned for impersonation of a drunken Dawkins rant: -4 +6 = 2
   Net points: 2 out of10

Most of the undergrads that I teach are great - but sometimes….

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