Essay Test Questions

[AdminAssistant]

Another minor rant are those damn blue books. Sure, they only cost 30-50 cents, but they are so unnecessary. Why do I need to make a special trip to buy paper stappled together when I have my own? It's just an unnecessary expenditure.

See those made sense when the teacher was the only one that could buy those and passed them out at the beginning of the exam to make sure you weren't cheating by having written anything beforehand now they are pointless.

Blue books absolutely make sense from my point of view. Otherwise, I'd get a lot of, "Teacher, I forgot to bring paper" or "Teacher, the only paper I have is bright pink with little sparkles on it" etc. Not to mention the fact that they're already stapled. Why should I have to bring a stapler and spare paper and pens to coddle unprepared students? I shouldn't and I won't.

This is the exact reasoning my Philosophy Prof has. He says that length doesn't matter, to an extent. If it is only one paragraph, obviously the argument is not developed by any means.

Right. I actually prefer if someone can answer the question succinctly, but they must also answer it completely.


I'm hearing a lot of this right now, and it really frustrates me. First of all, the students are nagging for a comprehensive review, which they wouldn't need if they were attending lecture regularly (out of 140 students registered, about 20-30 show up to lecture on a regular basis.) Sorry, but I'm not putting together a study guide because you didn't feel like coming to class or reading the book. Also, students don't think it's 'fair' that we grade on a +/- scale, when that's the standard set by the University. Oh, and the class average is an A- right now. And now they're whining about essay tests. They want to cram for a multiple choice test, regurgitate the information, and then forget. Well, excuse us for wanting you to actually learn something. After all, that's the entire point of college!! It would be easier for me to give that kind of test, but I like what I'm teaching and I want to share it with others.

It really pisses me off here, because I know how expensive tuition is, and a lot of parents are going into debt so that Little Billy can run around a different town, drink a lot, and not do any work.

[Rageaholic]

Blue books absolutely make sense from my point of view. Otherwise, I'd get a lot of, "Teacher, I forgot to bring paper" or "Teacher, the only paper I have is bright pink with little sparkles on it" etc. Not to mention the fact that they're already stapled. Why should I have to bring a stapler and spare paper and pens to coddle unprepared students? I shouldn't and I won't.

Well it's nice to have them, but if someone brings their own paper, they should be able to use that.

[AdminAssistant]

Well it's nice to have them, but if someone brings their own paper, they should be able to use that.

You are bringing your own paper in a different form. I'm not saying I would provide them (they cost an entire $0.25). It's not too much to ask students to buy and bring a blue book with them. Loose paper is messy. The sizes aren't uniform, there's the issue of stapling, and then the spiral notebooks without tear away pages. (I hate the scraggle that spiral notebooks leave on the edge of paper.) Blue books make grading a bit more convenient, not to mention giving a level of grade privacy.

[Boozy]

The length thing is what gets me. I don't always need to write 4 pages to sum up my idea. Do they really want me to write another page of filler just to make it 4 pages long?

When an essay question says that the answer should be about 4 pages, that is to give you an idea of how in-depth an analysis you need to be making. If you can truly sum up your idea in far less than that, then you are likely missing some very important facets of the topic. You'd need to re-think your response.

I always thought that the blue books are used primarily to prevent cheating. At the university I attended, they were purchased and stamped by the proctors. No student could sneak in pre-written papers or answers, because they didn't have access to the stamped booklets. It makes no sense to have students bring their own.

[McDreidel09]

I'm really going to show my age here.

I have never used a blue book. When exams are out, my profs are very particular about having everything off the desk or table and walk around to make sure that no-one is cheating.

But that being said, most of my profs don't give essay exams. So far, I have only had essay exams in my Freshman Comp I (last semester), Philosophy, and Intro to American Government.

[Fryk]

When an essay question says that the answer should be about 4 pages, that is to give you an idea of how in-depth an analysis you need to be making. If you can truly sum up your idea in far less than that, then you are likely missing some very important facets of the topic. You'd need to re-think your response.

I always thought that the blue books are used primarily to prevent cheating. At the university I attended, they were purchased and stamped by the proctors. No student could sneak in pre-written papers or answers, because they didn't have access to the stamped booklets. It makes no sense to have students bring their own.

I agree with you, Boozy. But what I was referring to was a prof I had who would say something along the lines of "well, you did answer the question comepletely, but it still wasn't long enough, so I took points off." THAT is complete zebrashit.

[Rageaholic]

I always thought that the blue books are used primarily to prevent cheating. At the university I attended, they were purchased and stamped by the proctors. No student could sneak in pre-written papers or answers, because they didn't have access to the stamped booklets. It makes no sense to have students bring their own.

At the college I go to, you can buy the books in those vending machines or at the bookstore. I'd think if a student were to cheat, they would just buy one and write the answer ahead of time. This is also assuming they know what essay question is going to be asked. If cheating were the reason, wouldn't they hand them out in the classroom? Or why don't they just add a few blank sheets of paper on the back of the test?

[jackfaire]

Rage the assumption is that if you are unable to obtain the blue books through any means other than through the proctors or the prof then you could be given the essay questions to better help you prepare without letting you cheat.

[AdminAssistant]

If cheating were the reason, wouldn't they hand them out in the classroom?

You'd be amazed at how poorly pencil erases. I've had a student do just that, and I could tell he had written in the book beforehand and erased his notes. (Besides, a student furiously erasing pages upon pages of notes is going to attract attention.) The student failed despite the cheating, so meh.

Or why don't they just add a few blank sheets of paper on the back of the test?

Because every academic department is extremely broke right now and they can't afford to provide that much paper. Besides, students would just complain about it being unlined.