Amherst to Edinburgh

We’re done! And at this school, being done with final exams is the same as being completely free of academic obligation. The exam period went by fairly quickly for both of us, and our timetable was spaced out enough to ease some of the mental pressure. The exam format changes slightly depending on the subject, but for the most part is focused on writing one or two essays from a choice of questions over the course of two hours. The exam halls are very traditional in appearance, and resemble this:

As all of my classes were honors option philosophy courses, all of my exams looked very similar. I managed to feel pretty relaxed or even pleased walking out of them, even though it is nearly impossible to anticipate the sort of questions that will be on the exam. This is my first problem with this system of evaluation: when you have the content of an entire semester to choose from, you don’t have much of a guide as to which ten questions will be extracted for the exam. It’s true that the University posts copies of old exam questions online, but the number available for both me and Nateene was patchy. Two of my classes only had one previous question sheet posted, but one (Modern Continental Philosophy) had four. Can you guess which exam was written most strategically?

Continuing on the topic of preparation by considering old exams, it’s important to note that the syllabus for a given course changes from year to year. For example, my Modern Continental course focused only on Husserl, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. This was the right decision to make on the part of the professor, as all of those thinkers are extremely dense. But in past years, Sartre was also included in the syllabus, and so there were questions about Sartre on all the old exams. This did me no favors. It was even worse for my Advanced Topics in Philosophy of Science course, which only had one previous exam posted. The old syllabus did not include sections on philosophy of biology or quantum physics, but did include a segment on Van Frassen’s empiricism. Because Philosophy of Science is my strongest topic, this wasn’t much of an issue. But in either of my other courses, where I was less familiar with the content, it might have been catastrophic.

Don’t get the wrong idea: all of my exams, ultimately, went pretty smoothly. I also had some very good luck, and experienced some pretty rigorous preparation. Hampshire kids can do well here, if only because there’s very little guidance on what content you should have in mind before you go into an exam. If you’re self-directed enough to design your own course of study, you should be self-directed enough to kick your own ass into doing serious revision starting at least a week before each exam. My bitterness comes from the fact that you can do an excellent revision and still have terrible luck. Unfortunately, Nateene had a taste of the bad luck that I managed to dodge.

Unlike philosophy exams, the format of Art History exams is such that you must answer one image identification question and then an essay question of your choice. In a generous gesture, Nateene’s art history professor had nearly all of the images from his lectures put up on the course website, for a total of more than 300 images. Nateene went through just about all of them, especially those that carried the most historical weight and therefore the greatest chances of appearing on the exam. There was a seizing up of most students in the exam, however, upon first looking at the corresponding question. Three out of four of the images on the exam, it turned out, were not among those posted on the website. Now, it didn’t say anywhere that the website held the totality of images for the course, but it seems pretty cruel to put up 300 images and not have at least a majority of the exam images come from that pool. All the same, Nateene managed to take a stab at the question and knock out a decent essay for the question of her choice. I’m just glad that I didn’t have such a curveball on my exams.

My final complaint will be less relevant to future University students, at least those taking a course in Philosophy. Most departments are already ahead of this, and it will change to a more sane method of evaluation by next year. But for 2007-08, one’s mark in a philosophy class is totally determined by one’s mark on the exam. Any papers I wrote or presentations I gave were only formative- they were practice, as it were, for the exam. I was able to profitably study from the presentation I wrote on adaptationism for my Philosophy of Science exam, but the mark I received for the presentation in now way influences my final grade. This is not true of Nateene’s papers. Her mark for the course will be based on the different marks she received for different pieces of work. The philosophy department is undergoing a change where they can assign different weights to papers and presentations, and will be implemented by next year. I’m glad– it’s bad enough to be evaluated with an exam and a letter mark, rather than an evaluation, but to be evaluated ONLY on the basis of exam performance is ludicrous. My courses and professors here were great, but the method of evaluation in no way stacks up to that of Hampshire. Having gone to a school with evaluations for my first few semesters, I don’t think I had a full sense of appreciation. Written evaluations are by far the more satisfying method of evaluation.

- Don