Word: essays
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...their pursuit of academic excellence, the better liberal-arts teachers insist that their students read the original writings of the world's great thinkers and then take essay tests for comprehension of ideas rather than multiple-choice quizzes for recall of facts. This strains both the study time of the student and the grading time of the teacher-but neither has ever been shy about seeking short cuts. And, sometimes openly, sometimes secretively, a shortcut device known as the "cept" is creeping across U.S. college campuses...
...than an axiom, more than a thesis but less than a synthesis. The Princeton student has it made if he can spot these prized nuggets in rapid reading or sporadic attendance at lectures, spin them out glibly during a precept and, above all, weave them dazzlingly into an exam essay...
...encourage ceptsmanship, stress the cept in their lectures, argue that students who retain the cepts acquire an understanding that goes beyond a rote knowledge of who said what. These teachers may also delight in the cept as a handy way of rating the quality of a student's essay in quantitative terms. They merely scan the essay, underline the cepts, assign a numerical value to each, and tot them up. Other teachers never admit they are even aware of cepts-but tacitly use them anyway in grading. Superlative ceptsmanship amounts to a canny duel between teacher and student...
Superficial Felicity. The student who can sprinkle some real comprehension over his cepts has an unbeatable essay. The difficulty with this is that it requires the student to read rather than browse through the assigned books, and to attend lectures rather than crib the cept notes of a conscientious friend. And doing all of the assigned work leads to a dangerous temptation: the student may answer an exam question with original thoughts, not cepts. To the cept-conscious prof, this is evidence that the student is trying to cover up his loafing and his failure to learn his cepts...
...apparently chosen to justify the library's ban on women. The Useless Sex. The Anti-Sex. The Subjection of Women, and All Women are Fatal are prominently displayed. One of the cases contains on edition of Pierre de Bourdeille's. The Lives of Gallant Ladies, suggestively opened to "Fourth Essay--On Married Women, Widows and Girls to ascertain which class of them is botter in love than the others...