Reality Check
*** WHINE ALERT ***
It just occured to me how whiney this post is. I stand by it because, well, I feel like whining. Read at your own risk, you've been warned.
*** WHINE ALERT ***
I hope through reading these blog entries you, my dear reader, have come to learn something about me. Most specifically, that I have now crested the hill of youth and am quickly rolling down the other side into senility. That, truly, is the purpose of this blog, to point out my advancing age.
So, in that vein, here is something that us old-timers don't like very much: somebody telling us whether what we do is right or wrong. Mid-terms are precisely the kind of things that grades whether or not you are doing something wrong. Therefore mid-terms are, quite transitively, something that us old-timers despise.
But they are ahideous fact of graduate-school life and you need to roll up your sleeves and do your best. So I read the 400 or 500 pages out of the textbook to prepare for the mid-term. I read all 7 of the class handouts, which were ~45 pages each, to prepare for the mid-term. I read appendices A, B, and C of our book (150 pages in its own right). I looked through the copious notes that I took in class, to prepare for the mid-term. In that endeavor I found several errors with the teacher's presented materials and an error or two in the textbook itself.
Two hours before the mid-term I re-did every problem set problem and "practice" problem handed out. I can draw things on a white-board that would make your hair turn grey. I was ready. What more could one human being possibly do to prepare for such a mid-term. I gloriously envisioned myself walking out of there after 20 minutes.
And then God hit the smite button.
We hear the word "smite" quite a bit. Do we really know what smite means? Certainly it can mean a heavy blow. It can also mean to affect deeply: He was "smitten" by her beauty.
Yes, Thursday night I was smitten. I was deeply, deeply affected by the randomness and cruelty of that midterm. We had 3 hours to answer 11 questions. About 2.5 hours into the exam I was the second one finished. 11 problems! Surely they all must have had sections a-z in them to make it take that long! Sadly, no.
90% of the course material covered was not represented in the mid-term. The meat of the course was completely skipped over in favor of a series of "gotcha" questions from the fringes of the classroom discussion. Ouch. Double ouch.
I haven't taken a mid-term in 9 years and I just got rocked.
I was able to remember a few of the questions after the mid-term, and I have recreated them here for your enjoyment.
1. Recall the difference between a Princeton and a Harvard architecture. Using this terminology, tell me what I had for lunch today.
2. Look up at me and raise your hand. Observe me at the desk. Now, tell me what I am thinking. Please note the time you did this, so I can correlate it to my memory.
3. blank Yup. Nothing. Just: #3 (20points):
I think I got #3 correct -- I answered "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
So, apparently, I am old and cranky. A popular combination amongst my demographic.
-Ed
It just occured to me how whiney this post is. I stand by it because, well, I feel like whining. Read at your own risk, you've been warned.
*** WHINE ALERT ***
I hope through reading these blog entries you, my dear reader, have come to learn something about me. Most specifically, that I have now crested the hill of youth and am quickly rolling down the other side into senility. That, truly, is the purpose of this blog, to point out my advancing age.
So, in that vein, here is something that us old-timers don't like very much: somebody telling us whether what we do is right or wrong. Mid-terms are precisely the kind of things that grades whether or not you are doing something wrong. Therefore mid-terms are, quite transitively, something that us old-timers despise.
But they are ahideous fact of graduate-school life and you need to roll up your sleeves and do your best. So I read the 400 or 500 pages out of the textbook to prepare for the mid-term. I read all 7 of the class handouts, which were ~45 pages each, to prepare for the mid-term. I read appendices A, B, and C of our book (150 pages in its own right). I looked through the copious notes that I took in class, to prepare for the mid-term. In that endeavor I found several errors with the teacher's presented materials and an error or two in the textbook itself.
Two hours before the mid-term I re-did every problem set problem and "practice" problem handed out. I can draw things on a white-board that would make your hair turn grey. I was ready. What more could one human being possibly do to prepare for such a mid-term. I gloriously envisioned myself walking out of there after 20 minutes.
And then God hit the smite button.
We hear the word "smite" quite a bit. Do we really know what smite means? Certainly it can mean a heavy blow. It can also mean to affect deeply: He was "smitten" by her beauty.
Yes, Thursday night I was smitten. I was deeply, deeply affected by the randomness and cruelty of that midterm. We had 3 hours to answer 11 questions. About 2.5 hours into the exam I was the second one finished. 11 problems! Surely they all must have had sections a-z in them to make it take that long! Sadly, no.
90% of the course material covered was not represented in the mid-term. The meat of the course was completely skipped over in favor of a series of "gotcha" questions from the fringes of the classroom discussion. Ouch. Double ouch.
I haven't taken a mid-term in 9 years and I just got rocked.
I was able to remember a few of the questions after the mid-term, and I have recreated them here for your enjoyment.
1. Recall the difference between a Princeton and a Harvard architecture. Using this terminology, tell me what I had for lunch today.
2. Look up at me and raise your hand. Observe me at the desk. Now, tell me what I am thinking. Please note the time you did this, so I can correlate it to my memory.
3. blank Yup. Nothing. Just: #3 (20points):
I think I got #3 correct -- I answered "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
So, apparently, I am old and cranky. A popular combination amongst my demographic.
-Ed
posted by Ed at 1:14 PM
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