Word: freshmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Currently, arbitrary deadlines determine the timing of the computer tests. The Core office reminds freshmen of the deadlines through two or three communiques scattered thoughout the year. The bogus deadlines come and go, without any strict enforcement--until the last minute pile-up, like last week's episode, in which one third of the class waits in line for hours and graders pull marathon sessions until...
...avoid end-of-April testing madness, Core policymakers could take a clue from the scheduling of the data interpretation part of the QRR. Computer tests should be scheduled in mandatory sessions for all freshmen at the beginning of the year. Exams could begin in October so that students will have had plenty of opportunity to attend mini-courses and work with the computers...
Furthermore, the complicated jargon of the VAX system so hastily memorized by frantic freshmen for the test is rarely even applicable to future use. Detailed command memorization obscures the underlying need for programming skills that students can apply to future encounters with technology. The VAX system, which connects all terminals to one main computer, frequently falls victim to system failures which halt the already rushed testing sessions and inconvenience test takers and graders...
...curriculum--a Science A class on programming and how computers work. Unfortunately, planning for the class was given low priority status by the council and no action was taken on it this year. Core planners should create a computer class and reconstruct the testing method before next year's freshmen end up in yet another spring cramming session in the Science Center basement...
This is not to say that no work has been done along these lines....For example, a study comparing the writing abilities of freshmen and seniors disclosed that science concentrators often regressed, since they received so few writing assignments and often lacked an incentive even to express themselves in complete sentences. Following this study, several professors of large science courses increased the number of their writing assignments. In yet another study, surveys of students a year after completing the basic course in economics disclosed that most of them had retained the concepts they had learned but had forgotten much...