Word: orall
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...time to stop teaching," says Lord, who taught Comparative Literature 101a, "Heroic Poetry the Oral Epic." this year. Lord will be working on two books on the tradition of oral epic poetry in his Widener office. "I'm going to be writing. I hope, like mad," he says...
...oral exams expect something else. There are 6500 stories in this college, and this is one of them. I wasn't allowed to change the date of my test despite having a radio show until 8 a.m. that day, and having a 15-page paper due the next. I wasn't allowed to know who my examiners were until I arrived at the Hist and Lit office, hair still drying, coat slightly rumpled. Then it was confided to me in a stage whisper that I had drawn "The Inquisitor" (not his real name), one of the most well-read professors...
...these, none is more dreaded or reviled than the oral examination, the supposed summation of all that has gone before. Some students change entire plans of study just to avoid them. In the History and Literature department, an all-honors concentration, orals are required for high honors (magna or summa cum laude), no matter what one's academic standing...
...knew since going Hist and Lit at the end of freshman year that in risking orals I was flirting with hellfire. My memory is such that people I've grown up with often have to tell me stories about myself. I also have moral qualms about the concept of oral tests: they merely test your ability to bullshit while sipping sherry with other literati with the added incentive of a machine gun aimed between your eyes...
Every question was double-barreled, aimed at my ever-shrinking cranium. If I got past any of the board land mines, I was forced into pinpointing my ignorance more sharply. Oral exams are verbal pole-vaults: keep making stabs till you fall on your face...