"'Cause it's all in my head / I think about it over and over again..."
I’m sorry. I need a moment.
The midterm was fucking ridiculous. In a “That was the easiest thing I’ve ever done” kind of way.
The class is Philosophies of Education. It’s a requirement for the Masters of Education in English. For this midterm, the professor gave us a list of 30 questions about idealism, realism, pragmatism and existentialism that if we could answer those questions, we would pass the final.
I spent all of Saturday answering those questions and making a 15 page review sheet with all the answers on it with all the information from my notes and the book. I missed Cheera’s birthday party in Boston because I really believed I needed to buckle down and learn this stuff for the midterm.
At the end of the review sheet was a note that the midterm would be 111 multiple choice questions of which we would have to answer 100. That right there made me go “well, how hard could that be?” But I thought, “There must be a trick, I must study.” So I did.
The midterm turned out to be 136 questions (but 25 were in the “advanced” section so we didn’t have to do them…) from some textbook. It was labeled in the textbook as “Review Test” so you know they’re not throwing you any curveballs. It was broken into sections like “Values” “Classroom Methods” “Morals” and “Curriculum”.
Through the first section, I realized all I had to know was keywords for each of the 4 philosophies. If the question had to do with idealism I looked for the answer that had to do with tradition or dialectic. If it was realism, science or scientific method. Pragmatism, society and existentialism, individualism. That was it. It just followed those patterns. And it wasn’t like the professor wrote it so you had to factor in “Well, maybe he means this..” it was straight out of a textbook, they’re not trying to trick you, it’s not the GRE.
So I finished in 20 minutes. Then I looked around and saw that no one else even looked close to done. And that made me think, “wow, maybe I really missed something”. So I took that time and did the 25 “advanced” questions and looked at some of the others to make sure that I was set. Then I decided there was no reason for me to pretend not to be done when I was obviously not changing any of my answers. I checked my notes when I got to the car, I got all the “keywords” right, I didn’t switch any of them, like confuse realism for pragmatism so there’s no way I could possibly have done badly on this exam. As a matter of fact, there’s really no way I could’ve gotten anything less then a 100% (+the extra credit questions…)
What makes me the most pissed is that I missed an awesome weekend out with the girls for NOTHING. Oh, and that I’m spending $700 for this shit and it’s useless. Not even challenging. Which I guess is fine, but seriously…the man said that if we do a posterboard describing all the different philosophies then we don’t have to take THE FINAL!?! That’s all well and good, but I’m a grad student in a philosophy class. ARTS AND CRAFTS instead of THE FINAL?? It just seems stupid.
I was talking to my dad about it and he goes “Well, why don’t you just take the final?” Well Dad, because I don’t want to be the only asshole in the class that goes ‘I’d really like to write some essays instead please…’ I know it’s stupid to bitch about an easy A…but really…
The midterm was fucking ridiculous. In a “That was the easiest thing I’ve ever done” kind of way.
The class is Philosophies of Education. It’s a requirement for the Masters of Education in English. For this midterm, the professor gave us a list of 30 questions about idealism, realism, pragmatism and existentialism that if we could answer those questions, we would pass the final.
I spent all of Saturday answering those questions and making a 15 page review sheet with all the answers on it with all the information from my notes and the book. I missed Cheera’s birthday party in Boston because I really believed I needed to buckle down and learn this stuff for the midterm.
At the end of the review sheet was a note that the midterm would be 111 multiple choice questions of which we would have to answer 100. That right there made me go “well, how hard could that be?” But I thought, “There must be a trick, I must study.” So I did.
The midterm turned out to be 136 questions (but 25 were in the “advanced” section so we didn’t have to do them…) from some textbook. It was labeled in the textbook as “Review Test” so you know they’re not throwing you any curveballs. It was broken into sections like “Values” “Classroom Methods” “Morals” and “Curriculum”.
Through the first section, I realized all I had to know was keywords for each of the 4 philosophies. If the question had to do with idealism I looked for the answer that had to do with tradition or dialectic. If it was realism, science or scientific method. Pragmatism, society and existentialism, individualism. That was it. It just followed those patterns. And it wasn’t like the professor wrote it so you had to factor in “Well, maybe he means this..” it was straight out of a textbook, they’re not trying to trick you, it’s not the GRE.
So I finished in 20 minutes. Then I looked around and saw that no one else even looked close to done. And that made me think, “wow, maybe I really missed something”. So I took that time and did the 25 “advanced” questions and looked at some of the others to make sure that I was set. Then I decided there was no reason for me to pretend not to be done when I was obviously not changing any of my answers. I checked my notes when I got to the car, I got all the “keywords” right, I didn’t switch any of them, like confuse realism for pragmatism so there’s no way I could possibly have done badly on this exam. As a matter of fact, there’s really no way I could’ve gotten anything less then a 100% (+the extra credit questions…)
What makes me the most pissed is that I missed an awesome weekend out with the girls for NOTHING. Oh, and that I’m spending $700 for this shit and it’s useless. Not even challenging. Which I guess is fine, but seriously…the man said that if we do a posterboard describing all the different philosophies then we don’t have to take THE FINAL!?! That’s all well and good, but I’m a grad student in a philosophy class. ARTS AND CRAFTS instead of THE FINAL?? It just seems stupid.
I was talking to my dad about it and he goes “Well, why don’t you just take the final?” Well Dad, because I don’t want to be the only asshole in the class that goes ‘I’d really like to write some essays instead please…’ I know it’s stupid to bitch about an easy A…but really…