The Hanover Scene
OUR generally indulgent undergraduate body has lately been enjoying a ceremony known as "Mid-Years"—a series of written exercises imposed by the academic department to enable the student to synthesize his fragments of learning and demonstrate the intellectual gains of a semester. We do not believe that in an institution such as ours, where many give some day-to-day attention to class assignments and recitations, final exams have quite the life-and-death significance that is elsewhere assigned them. At least, we have observed no votive tablets in our local temples, and the movies are well attended. On the other hand, the Library is overcrowded during the examination period, dormitory lights glow late, and various propitiatory gestures can be observed. Some students allow their beards to grow (purple), many touch the bronze nose of the bust of the Dean, and a few have been reported as removing pins from waxen images of their professors.
Taking exams is an art than can be, and is, mastered by the vast majority of students, although there is occasionally a well-rounded boy of such short radius that he falls shy of complete domination of his subject and spends his allotted two-hour session sore-heartedly mourning the fact that two and two are neither five nor three. Some examination papers require simple memorization - e.g. the principal parts of the classroom, as taught in beginning language classes. Some demand a series of decisions between truth and falsehood: "Two roads diverged in a wood ... and that has made all the difference." Others, indeed like life itself, present a multiple choice among a series of apparently equally palatable possibilities. But the essay question is apt to be more of a sticker, when one must organize his thoughts into a coherent discourse and arrive at a not-too-absurd conclusion, on such topics as: "How bad is man? Why?" "I like dollar bills because ..." or "Life?"
But if writing examinations is an Art, correcting them is a Fine Art. Not, of course, for the true-false type, in which the only - and not inconsiderable skill is in framing the questions. Then, if the margins are correct and the electric pencils properly sharpened, you simply feed the papers into one end of an apparatus and the results come out the other end all in a proper curve and with a commendatory or consolatory note attached. It has sometimes seemed to us that it would be more efficient to punch the students themselves and feed them through a machine, but perhaps this is what we have been doing all along.
The evaluation of an essay or discussion question calls for more discrimination, more time, more objectivity, and more frustration on the part of the instructor, unless he is one of the fortunate few who know THE TRUTH. Curves are no good unless the questions, the students, and the answers are carried to infinity. There can be a not unpleasant mathematical diversion in marking answers A,B,C, etc., translating these terms to numbers, adding them up, and translating back to letters, but the first decision is the one that calls for an unhuman impartiality. And the task is further complicated by the current faculty dictum that the grade of "C" is non-existent. There are some examination answers - there are some undergraduates - that are definitely "C," but they must now be marked with a "C+," which is too exalting, or a "C—," which is too debasing. The Dartmouth is currently agitating for three marks: Honors, Pass, and Fail; but it has modified its stand so that marks would be, in effect: Really, Maybe Really, Yes, Almost, No, and Really No. But we cannot discuss here what marks, if any, ought to be given. It is enough trouble to deal with the marks that are given.
No matter how the Battle of Waterloo was determined, the battle of the blue books is not won on the playing fields or on the open highway, and more in ultimate fairness to the standards of the College and to the student himself, than for any reason of personal prestige, the instructor must frequently wrestle with his private angels to an extent that would demote Jacob to the welterweight division. The aftermath is not always pleasant. Occasionally a streak of the Mossadegh or Johnny Ray develops in a boy who questions the evaluation of his intellectual achievement, but by and large justice is done.
The traditional adjuration to students embarking on finals is: "Take a brisk walk and go into the examination with a clear head." To this we would add: "Answer the question that is asked, no matter how alluring or convenient may seem some alternative query of your own invention."
We are grateful that, at our age, we have no probable further need for such advice.
