Word: exam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have, I must confess, serious doubts about the efficacy--or even the integrity--of the "classic" exam period editorial, "Beating the System," you reprinted recently. I almost suspect this so-called "Donald Carswell '50" of being rather one of Us--the Bad Guys--than one of You. If your readers have been following Mr. Carswell's advice for the last eleven years, then your readers have been going down the tubes. It is time to disillusion...
Artful Equivocations are even worse; lynx-eyed sly little rascals that we are, we see right through them. (Up to Exam No. 40. Then our lynx eyelids droop, and grading habits relax. Try to get on the bottom of the pile.) Again, it is not that A.E.'s are vicious or ludicrous as such; but in quantity they become sheer madness. Or induce it. "The twentieth century has never recoverd from the effects of Marx and Freud" (V.G.); "but whether this is a good thing or a bad is difficult to say" (A.E.). Now one such might be droll enough...
...instinct to cheat creeps in during the trying moments of an exam or a game. Just as a pitcher may rub his baseball against an Emery Board when down 3-and-0 with the bases loaded, a student's eyes might want to wander when facing a clutch question...
...although many will arrive much under-prepared for the ultimate intellectual game, there are few who will not have undergone Herculean efforts to create a gameplan for an exam, if not actually going the distance of having handfuls of facts at their fingertips...
This longing may be affected by the type of question (it's a lot easier to cheat on a true-false test than an essay exam) and it is certainly affected by frustration level. If you can't for the life of you remember one out of 100 multiple choice questions, it seems pretty darn stupid to risk the other 99 by looking over someone's shoulder. If you have gone through all 100 and haven't gotten one so far, you might feel you have less to lose by trying to pick up a couple answers the slimy...