I hate pop quizzes.
I hate pop quizzes in the US; I hate pop quizzes in Russia; and I especially hate badly written pop quizzes in a language that I'm only now starting to get the hang of.
Normally, I try not to rant on this blog (though my success at such attempts is a thing to be debated). However, this was THE worst-written pop quiz I have ever taken.
Reason why?
The professor totally did NOT understand the mechanics of multiple choice questions.
Now, one would think, "Oh! Multiple choice! Bunch of answers, you choose one correct answer; what is there to NOT get?"
This professor missed the part where there's only one correct answer, sometimes having as many as six out of six answers correct for one single question. I can only recall one question where there was only one answer; and even then, the professor was trying to think of reasons that the other answers COULD possibly be correct, you know, if you really thought about the history of everything...
What's the point of asking a question if ALL the answers are correct? Why ask someone to choose something specific, when there are two very different possible answers? And why give this to foreign students whose grasp of Russian is shaky, at best?
Suffice it to say, I was not a happy camper when I left that class. The professor totally misdefined what first-, second-, and third-world countries are (the US and the Soviet Union were first world, all of Europe the second world, and all of Asia and Africa the third...); he completely missed THE most important component of the World Systems analysis of International Relations (which is the exploitation of the periphery by the core-- okay, I know it sounds like gobbledyguk, but if you're in International Relations, such an exclusion is a really big deal)... And with that awful, horrifically written test (ALL THE RIGHT ANSWERS), I left class in a sour mood.
Luckily, my Spanish class went better. To explain: I am now taking Spanish classes while in Russia, in order to improve my Spanish before I study abroad next semester in Spain. Currently, my Spanish is a total trainwreck, an abomination of Russian and Spanish words and grammar smeared together like paints in a Abstract Futurist painting in the pre-Russian Revolution period.
Luckily, I'm somewhat of a polyglot-- I learn languages relatively well, relatively quickly and relatively easily-- so even within tonight, my Spanish was rapidly improving.
Anyway, now that my day of academic adventures is over, it's time for me to eat some dinner and go to bed. But just remember: some teachers don't understand what it means to have a multiple choice test.
I hate pop quizzes in the US; I hate pop quizzes in Russia; and I especially hate badly written pop quizzes in a language that I'm only now starting to get the hang of.
Normally, I try not to rant on this blog (though my success at such attempts is a thing to be debated). However, this was THE worst-written pop quiz I have ever taken.
Reason why?
The professor totally did NOT understand the mechanics of multiple choice questions.
Now, one would think, "Oh! Multiple choice! Bunch of answers, you choose one correct answer; what is there to NOT get?"
This professor missed the part where there's only one correct answer, sometimes having as many as six out of six answers correct for one single question. I can only recall one question where there was only one answer; and even then, the professor was trying to think of reasons that the other answers COULD possibly be correct, you know, if you really thought about the history of everything...
What's the point of asking a question if ALL the answers are correct? Why ask someone to choose something specific, when there are two very different possible answers? And why give this to foreign students whose grasp of Russian is shaky, at best?
Suffice it to say, I was not a happy camper when I left that class. The professor totally misdefined what first-, second-, and third-world countries are (the US and the Soviet Union were first world, all of Europe the second world, and all of Asia and Africa the third...); he completely missed THE most important component of the World Systems analysis of International Relations (which is the exploitation of the periphery by the core-- okay, I know it sounds like gobbledyguk, but if you're in International Relations, such an exclusion is a really big deal)... And with that awful, horrifically written test (ALL THE RIGHT ANSWERS), I left class in a sour mood.
Luckily, my Spanish class went better. To explain: I am now taking Spanish classes while in Russia, in order to improve my Spanish before I study abroad next semester in Spain. Currently, my Spanish is a total trainwreck, an abomination of Russian and Spanish words and grammar smeared together like paints in a Abstract Futurist painting in the pre-Russian Revolution period.
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| If you like this, then this is not an appropriate simile. (Painting by Umberto Boccioni; okay, so he's Italian, but it's still a Futurist painting.) |
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| No, I don't know why she's drooling, either-- it's awfully hard to find Dark Momoka on the internet, you know. (If you do not know the reference, you really don't need to.) |
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