I am taking an actual face-to-face course this semester: The Emerging U.S. Health Care System. This is a required course for my major, so there is no getting out of it. However, I have had the bulk of this material in numerous other courses over the years.
The grade in the class is, more or less, equally balanced on the midterm, final, class participation, homework, and a ten page paper. The paper will be the only thing that I won't absolutely be able to snooze through. I won't be bleeding over it, mind you, but I'll be putting forth some effort. On the other hand, the midterm has turned out to be a complete joke, in my book.
This is a face-to-face class with only four people in it. However, the instructor decided to give us a take home exam. No problem. However, 80% of the grade on the exam are multiple choice questions that could easily be researched using our text book. Another 10% of the grade is dependent on True or False questions that are nearly as mindless. The final ten points of the exam are two essay questions (but you get to pick which two out of four that you feel like answering).
Give me a break! How does this exam show that the students in this class have MASTERED the material thus far? Sadly, out of the four of us, two of my classmates will still probably struggle to get the give-away A that the instructor pretty much guaranteed us on this 'exam'. One is a very enthusiastic late-twenties ditz-ess of chaos (who took an incomplete in this class twice before). The other is a totally overwhelmed middle-aged health care worker.
I really don't mind that I don't have to work for the "A". However, I think this class is a disservice to the other students. If they walk out of the class with a "B" (or more probably a gifted "A") will they really have an appreciation for the material that we were supposed to cover? Doubtful.
C'est la vie.
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2 comments:
Yeah. I think the first 70-75% of the exam should be easy. If you have a basic grasp of the material, you get that. There's always human error, so the basics should get you a 'C'. The next 10-15% you get if you did all the prep work and have some nuanced insight. The last 10% are the people that know it cold and get some of the deeper more complex parts.
If I gave you the exam, and my text book, you could get an A on this thing in 45 minutes. The "essay" questions aren't really "essays" either. You don't have to support a statement or argue a point. Basically, you just have to regurgitate a paragraph, in your own words, on some topic that the book took three to seven paragraphs to introduce.
I also suspect that the instructor is going to be an easy grader.
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