The Past Quiz
I was not surprised with how the quzes turned out for our class. I did bad. The reason a lot of people did bad is because the quizes are not worth that much, and there was too much to look over. I read the sections, but it obviously forgot a lot fo the material. When I sat down to study, I saw how much we had to look over and gave up instantly. I was also under the impression that we would get a week notification in advance, which was not the case with this quiz. As a regular college student, I worked all weekend and simply did not have the time to read over all of those chapters again.
Comments
I agree that the quiz caught me a little off guard. I mean, I feel that in life, we dont need to know what the word STAR stands for, maybe the concepts behind it, which I feel over the years and between this class and my public speaking class have become second nature. I will stand behind the fact that quizzes arent useful. Knowing specific knowledge, such as the STAR criteria, isnt what's going to make you a good writer or not.
However, the types of arguments is an okay thing to have memorized, but being tested on it sort of takes away the reason we all learn. I've come to college to learn as much as I can on a topic and if I can only remember a few specific things, but I know main concepts, I feel that I've learned sufficiently (most of the time.)I do think there are exceptions, but maybe if you give us a quiz again, a little more forwarning.
Posted by: Moira Pirsch | November 18, 2006 2:27 PM
I disagree. I thought the quiz was straightforward and by now, the topics that are going to be tested of us seem relatively obvious to me. If you pay attention in class for the most part you do not have to read the sections because she reviews the key points in every chapter. I do read the chapters when they are assigned to us making class discussion easer, but I feel that if you jot down what we are discussing in class the quizzes should be a piece of cake. Then before the quiz just review the few things you have in your notes.
Look back at the last quiz, the STAR theory is the only thing we discussed from that chapter in the writers reference. We spent a whole day talking about the different types of claims within your argument that you can make. Then the following class we took the time to present them, this is obviously something that has importance to writing if we spent more than a class period on it. I feel that the quizzes are basic tests of whether we are reading and paying attention in class and if you are doing this, the quiz should be a cakewalk.
Posted by: Sam Hager | November 19, 2006 2:29 PM
I agree with Sheriff and halfway agree with Sam on this one. I agree with Sheriff on the fact that there is too much to go over for just the small amount of time we were reminded and such the huge amount of time that was in between quizzes. The reason I agree with Sam is because lately the quizzes have been pretty obvious when you look at the test, you can see that it was just what we looked over in class. The reason I do not agree with Sam though is because when I am studying, as a college student, I cannot always think that your teacher is going to put the most obvious questions. Bottom line is that there was a huge amount of reading covered and it was harder.
Posted by: Erika French | November 26, 2006 7:08 PM
I agree with you. I read all of the material over a few days and also did poorly on the quiz. I think it was due to the fact that on the past quizzes, I just read through the readings and was able to do fine on them. This quiz was very specific to a few examples in the reading and required memmorization or at least reading over those parts a few times. I guess I just thought that the quiz would be easier, and I did not prepare myself enough.
Posted by: Jeff Wiesner | November 26, 2006 11:56 PM