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Dread an Essay Exam?
Posted by clioandme • 12/05/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: College, exams, history, studying, University
Any college students here who dread taking an essay exam, especially an essay exam in history? Since it's that time of year, I thought you might want to hear my take on the matter. Here's the advice I just posted for my students:
historysurvey.blogspot.com/2007/12/mastering-dreaded-essay-exam.html
User Comments
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[Sorry that two of these appeared. I only hit enter once. Maybe BC would be so kind as to delete one, before comments appear on both?]
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I always Loved essay exams, since they often allow you to tell whatever You do know, where a multiple choice exam lacks any such flexibility. I also often benefited from the fact that whether they explicitly stated it or not Professors and Instructors grading essay exams inevitably give more credit for well written, correctly spelled responses with good vocabulary and grammar, all of which come easy to me. More than once I bullshitted my way into a B without actually knowing the answer
The one horrible exception was a undergrad intro American History course taught by a slight shy woman who addressed the large auditorium thrice weekly in a very soft monotone that was largely inaudible, pausing frequenty to write on the board behind her a Pertinent Fact. Like Pavolov's dogs three hundred pens went to three hundred notebooks copying the Pertient Facts, since we all knew that come the exams we would have to regurgitate each and every one of those facts for the Grad Assistants who graded our essay exams solely on the basis of the inclusion or not of each and every Pertinent Fact. If you actually read them all yourself and consider both how the answer is presented as well as the level of mastery of the Facts, I say God Bless You, you are gift to your students.-
I've had some very well written D essays encounter my red pen.
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I am a big fan of the essay exam. -
Me, too. For me, it was survival!
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Your answers surprise me, as you might tell from my post. I lived in fear of the things, and had good reason to.
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I'm not too sure I remember them particularly with fondness myself. I've got two girls in school now and I'm not sure how they feel about them. Maybe I'll ask them, but as cranky as one of them has been I may wait until finals are over.
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But then she'd miss my brilliant advice!
(We need an emoticon that lets me roll my eyes at myself when I say something like that.) -
I should wake her up then for this read.... then blame you for waking her, huh?
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Mark, I haven't had a chance to read your post yet, but I always struggled with multiple choice tests, because on virtually every test there were several questions that made me say, "Well, it depends...if you make this assumption, it's "A", but..."
This did not apply on standardized tests, which I loved and always did well on, so I now suspect that most multiple choice tests are simply poorly written--or at least most of the ones that I encountered--but I always preferred essay questions because if an "it depends" arose, I could simply say so. And so much does.-
Multiple-choice is never an option for any good history course. Indeed, bringing them up here took me by surprise. The only thing I've ever done besides essays are short answers. History just does not lend itself to multiple choice, unless you want to turn it into an exercise in rote memorization. But then it's not history, but trivial pursuit. I have another post on that issue: historysurvey.blogspot.com/2007/06/names-and-dates.html
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Sadly, I had a Constitutional history class in college--don't remember whether it was junior or senior year, but it was a 400 level class--that was all multiple choice. And I mean all...no papers or anything.
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Lol, personally I like essay exams better than things like Fill in the blank or even multiple choice. A) Because you can use your interpretation in an essay and B) Bullshit goes a long way in an essay. ^_^
Cameron
(Reposting because I commented on the Evil twin of this discussion)-
Bullshit never goes anywhere. As I told Alan above, I've had well-written D essays. I even once had a well-written F. And I've had poorly crafted essays that still got a B.
If you get by with bullshit, chances are you actually said something that made sense. It just felt like bullshit, because you knew there was a lot more to the issue that you were unable to write about. That's what I like to think, anyway. If the professor is even more overworked than usual, the BS might just get past him or her. -
Yeah, it actually has something to do with the subject matter and my knowledge of it, but I call it bullshit because it is the stuff you put in to make it longer, but it comes out to more fluff.
Cameron -
hmmm. a teacher sharp enough to call me on my BS. might have learned something from you. And thinking more about it, what most often saved the grade was a well written essay that intelligently discussed several other themes and concepts that have been covered in the course, even though none of them quite answers the specific question posed. which I suppose is not quite the same as pulling it out of your hat...
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I prefer essay exams too. Like Tiffany, I've had troubles with multiple choice cause I usually over analyze it. -
Mark, it occurred to me after my initial response here that the basis for the unexpected response might be that this is a blogging community--in one way or another, we're all writers. Our view of essay questions undoubtedly differs from that of the general population.
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Yeah, but I like to write, and I was horrible at essay exams. There is writing and there is writing.
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The essay exams were always something I looked forward to; I only recall one that went south because I didn't agree with Plato's take on things and the teacher was a Plato fan. My bad. Ha! -
Mark, I just finally got a chance to go and read your post. If I were still teaching, I would definitely be directing my students to it; yours are very fortunate.
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Thank you.
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I always enjoyed essay exams as well, largely for one of the reasons MadameX indicated: sometimes, filling in a bubble just doesn't allow for the possibilities. There can be more than one way to look at something, and multiple choice questions can be extremely limiting, in that there's no way to indicate the thought process that went into a particular selection.
Plus, I learn best by synthesis. Essay exams allowed me to pull different thoughts together. Additionally, I just have a hard time shutting up in general -
I had one professor in law school who gave a part-multiple-choice exam but provided space after each question explicitly designated as an opportunity to qualify if you felt that the correct answer depended upon factors not given.
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Every professor's dream: a student who wants to "pull different thoughts together."
Provided those thoughts have some basis in the assigned texts and other sources, of course. -
MadameX: That's a great solution to the exam format dilemma.
stoneman: I tried to be a dream student, though I admit to it occasionally being a very disturbing dream. -
Tiffany, that's an interesting idea: easy grading with wiggle room for those will not be easily graded. I still can't think how it would work in my class, but for a straightforward content quiz it might. I don't do those in my surveys at George Mason, but I sometimes do them at another place where I need to monitor progress in a textbook.
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