Final Exams or Term Papers?

(and perhaps rule once entitled students taking final or midyear examinations to have a mug of ale at the end of hour. This sympathetic seems rather anomalous for the old Puritans who supposedly made it. Perhaps even they, despite their conviction that "all work and no play sends Jack to Heaven," had some unconscious qualms about the examination system.

has eliminated beer-quaffing in Memorial Hall, but it has also done away with universal agreement among Faculty members that examinations are a Good Thing. A few have gone so far as to suggest that examinations be abolished entirely, while they have ceased to regard formal as the only way to evaluate students' performance. These attitudes have produced a notable increase in the number of courses using term as a substitute for the once- "finals."

for Papers

Supporters of the term paper tend to regard the development of intellectual skills as a more important part of education than the acquisition of information. Three hours, they say, is hardly enough time for a student to exhibit his skill in relating Furthermore, examinations put on memory and glibness, evaluation of a student should chiefly upon standards of , clarity, and perceptiveness-- which one hopes to find among adults. As one instructor put it, taking examinations is an activity to students. When you assign you treat the student like an .

In some fields of study, such as History, however, there seem to be no feasible alternatives to examinations, as the mastery of a great many facts is deemed essential.

Argument for Exams

One of the chief purposes of History courses is to teach students what happened over a fairly long period, 100 years or so. Yet a good paper entails concentrating on a very limited topic over a very short time. Only a comprehensive final examination can require students to integrate the whole range of facts in the course. It is not surprising that some of the hardiest supporters of examinations come from the History Department.

One of the most convinced of these supporters is Franklin Ford, professor of History. While he concedes that the value of exams may vary from field to field, "in history, the payoff is what you can do with the material." Examinations are good, not so much because they require students to remember everything--"the police function of examinations has been over-emphasized"--as because a good examination gives students "a real intellectual experience." Answering well-formulted examination questions, the student "sits down at the end of a course and follows a theme though a 150-year period. He gets to see the forest as well as the treets."

The "professionalism" involved in writing papers causes Ford to regard them with some suspicion. "I would hate to think that every individual in one of my courses has to prove he would be able to write an article for a scholarly magazine."

Final papers have another, more mundane, drawback. The time required to grade them intelligently is far greater than that required for examinations. In some of the College's enormous and understaffed courses, this is quite impractical.

Underlying the qualms some Faculty members have about giving up examinations are fears that students might abuse an examination-free system. To them, examinations constitute a control which assures that students will not "get by" without doing their course work. William L. Langer '15, Coolidge Professor of History, whose courses are noted for their rigorous tests, maintains that "we can't get along without a system of exams . . . because students as a class are not as responsible as they should be." For example, a lot of students leave their essays until the last minute. If the University were to adopt the German and French system (no examinations until the Senior year, when there is a series of comprehensive exams), "the mortality would be enormous."

Exams to Remain

So it appears that, at least for the near future, the semi-annual ordeal will remain with us. To be sure, its critics have quite a few arguments left: examinations create arbitrary divisions between bodies of knowledge; they encourage students to cram in a hurry and forget equally rapidly. But given the practical advantages of examinations under the present educational system, one doubts that these criticisms will prevail. From a pragmatic standpoint, one can only ask: given examinations, how can they be made more tolerable? Or one can take a radical approach and inquire whether the entire system should be changed.

One often gets the feeling that taking examinations is like playing slot machines: you toss in your hard earned studies, the grader's mind goes round and round and suddenly lo and behold! up pops a grade--often far different from the one you felt you'd won when you took the test. (In justice, it would be said that teachers probably feel the same way about students: they toss in their hard-won knowledge, our minds go round and round, etc.)

The Grader

The problem is essentially one of lack of communication between grader and graded. The grader cannot help tending to regard his task as a dreary, repetitious chore, enlivened only by an occasional witty or brilliant examination, and by the opportunity to discuss the answers with his colleagues. The student can't help regarding his grader as a mysterious nonentity who lurks in the corners during lectures and whose mental processes are utterly incomprehensible except for an occasional rumor: "easy," "a bastard," etc. Most graders lack the time to comment on exams, and some courses even refuse to return them on request.

A number of proposals have been advanced to remedy this situation. Some would require that all exams bear detailed comments; others suggest that each student have a right to confront his grader. One of the more unique suggestions is that Sanford A. Lakoff, assistant professor of Government. The present student-faculty ratio, Lakoff says, makes it "utopian" to expect elaborate comments or an individual session with a grader. Many courses might improve matters by devoting a special meeting to a "post-mortem" on the exam, but half-courses would find this difficult.

So Lakoff proposes that the graders in each major course be given a chance to publish their observations of the exam. Not only would this give the student an opportunity to learn what went on in the graders' minds--and perhaps how to write better examinations--but it would stimulate the graders' interest in their chore.

The more radical approach is taken by David Riesman '31, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences. Of each assumption underlying our educational system, Riesman seems to ask: what does it do to help or hinder the development of man into what he--in Riesman's view--ought to be? Thus he feels that American culture generally involves thinking in terms of sequences or categories which are boxed off from one another. For Riesman, the question is not one of accepting this pattern as given and of working within it, but one of deciding whether or not it is valuable. Riesman regards examinations and grading as manifestations of this pattern. A examination sharply marks the end of one course and the beginning of the next; a grade is a way of producing "packaged people"--it assigns each person to a category which is impersonal and rigid. In both cases, Riesman contends, the artificial "boxes" are damaging.

By putting a student in a category, an assigned grade encourages him to avoid his most important task--that of self-evaluation. He tends to accept the verdict of the system: if successful, he may not ask how to develop further; unsuccessful, he may feel discouraged. ("I was just a 'B' student. Of course I didn't know any Faculty members. Who would want to talk with me?" asked a typlical student. When grades are coupled with a system of impersonal lectures and final examinations, they students from entering unknown of study. It becomes advantageous to "play from strength"--to take where one feels competent, rather than risk failure--quite possible in the sense of personal instruction where. This "feedback" effect the whole purpose of teaching, which is, in Riesman's view, to help the student accomplish something new.

By sharply demarcating course examinations encourage intellectual ; the student gets the feeling he has "completed" a field of and can now move on to something else. "If one doesn't have examination the task is never done. . . Examinations seem arduous, but they are actual easy way out--a time-clock.' they tend to prescribe field is like and what the data is. A teacher may tell his students to think and evaluate things for themselves, but the examination system rewards them for figuring what he wants--"teaching is odds with the examination system defeats itself." And by providing an artificial group of rewards and unrelated to the pleasure and pain the student gets from the of material he is studying, examination and grades distort his judgment of what he likes--a very crucial in Riesman's eyes.

There are, of course, a number of objections to this line of thought might take a conservative physical position with Professor who is "unwilling to believe just didn't know anything years ago," and who dismissed educational experiments with that they want to "pull education all the time to see if the roots down." Or one could take automatic view of those who abolishing grades might hurt chances of getting into school (how can the graduate tell how you did?)--which that it is futile to start here.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.

has eliminated beer-quaffing in Memorial Hall, but it has also done away with universal agreement among Faculty members that examinations are a Good Thing. A few have gone so far as to suggest that examinations be abolished entirely, while they have ceased to regard formal as the only way to evaluate students' performance. These attitudes have produced a notable increase in the number of courses using term as a substitute for the once- "finals."

for Papers

Supporters of the term paper tend to regard the development of intellectual skills as a more important part of education than the acquisition of information. Three hours, they say, is hardly enough time for a student to exhibit his skill in relating Furthermore, examinations put on memory and glibness, evaluation of a student should chiefly upon standards of , clarity, and perceptiveness-- which one hopes to find among adults. As one instructor put it, taking examinations is an activity to students. When you assign you treat the student like an .

In some fields of study, such as History, however, there seem to be no feasible alternatives to examinations, as the mastery of a great many facts is deemed essential.

Argument for Exams

One of the chief purposes of History courses is to teach students what happened over a fairly long period, 100 years or so. Yet a good paper entails concentrating on a very limited topic over a very short time. Only a comprehensive final examination can require students to integrate the whole range of facts in the course. It is not surprising that some of the hardiest supporters of examinations come from the History Department.

One of the most convinced of these supporters is Franklin Ford, professor of History. While he concedes that the value of exams may vary from field to field, "in history, the payoff is what you can do with the material." Examinations are good, not so much because they require students to remember everything--"the police function of examinations has been over-emphasized"--as because a good examination gives students "a real intellectual experience." Answering well-formulted examination questions, the student "sits down at the end of a course and follows a theme though a 150-year period. He gets to see the forest as well as the treets."

The "professionalism" involved in writing papers causes Ford to regard them with some suspicion. "I would hate to think that every individual in one of my courses has to prove he would be able to write an article for a scholarly magazine."

Final papers have another, more mundane, drawback. The time required to grade them intelligently is far greater than that required for examinations. In some of the College's enormous and understaffed courses, this is quite impractical.

Underlying the qualms some Faculty members have about giving up examinations are fears that students might abuse an examination-free system. To them, examinations constitute a control which assures that students will not "get by" without doing their course work. William L. Langer '15, Coolidge Professor of History, whose courses are noted for their rigorous tests, maintains that "we can't get along without a system of exams . . . because students as a class are not as responsible as they should be." For example, a lot of students leave their essays until the last minute. If the University were to adopt the German and French system (no examinations until the Senior year, when there is a series of comprehensive exams), "the mortality would be enormous."

Exams to Remain

So it appears that, at least for the near future, the semi-annual ordeal will remain with us. To be sure, its critics have quite a few arguments left: examinations create arbitrary divisions between bodies of knowledge; they encourage students to cram in a hurry and forget equally rapidly. But given the practical advantages of examinations under the present educational system, one doubts that these criticisms will prevail. From a pragmatic standpoint, one can only ask: given examinations, how can they be made more tolerable? Or one can take a radical approach and inquire whether the entire system should be changed.

One often gets the feeling that taking examinations is like playing slot machines: you toss in your hard earned studies, the grader's mind goes round and round and suddenly lo and behold! up pops a grade--often far different from the one you felt you'd won when you took the test. (In justice, it would be said that teachers probably feel the same way about students: they toss in their hard-won knowledge, our minds go round and round, etc.)

The Grader

The problem is essentially one of lack of communication between grader and graded. The grader cannot help tending to regard his task as a dreary, repetitious chore, enlivened only by an occasional witty or brilliant examination, and by the opportunity to discuss the answers with his colleagues. The student can't help regarding his grader as a mysterious nonentity who lurks in the corners during lectures and whose mental processes are utterly incomprehensible except for an occasional rumor: "easy," "a bastard," etc. Most graders lack the time to comment on exams, and some courses even refuse to return them on request.

A number of proposals have been advanced to remedy this situation. Some would require that all exams bear detailed comments; others suggest that each student have a right to confront his grader. One of the more unique suggestions is that Sanford A. Lakoff, assistant professor of Government. The present student-faculty ratio, Lakoff says, makes it "utopian" to expect elaborate comments or an individual session with a grader. Many courses might improve matters by devoting a special meeting to a "post-mortem" on the exam, but half-courses would find this difficult.

So Lakoff proposes that the graders in each major course be given a chance to publish their observations of the exam. Not only would this give the student an opportunity to learn what went on in the graders' minds--and perhaps how to write better examinations--but it would stimulate the graders' interest in their chore.

The more radical approach is taken by David Riesman '31, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences. Of each assumption underlying our educational system, Riesman seems to ask: what does it do to help or hinder the development of man into what he--in Riesman's view--ought to be? Thus he feels that American culture generally involves thinking in terms of sequences or categories which are boxed off from one another. For Riesman, the question is not one of accepting this pattern as given and of working within it, but one of deciding whether or not it is valuable. Riesman regards examinations and grading as manifestations of this pattern. A examination sharply marks the end of one course and the beginning of the next; a grade is a way of producing "packaged people"--it assigns each person to a category which is impersonal and rigid. In both cases, Riesman contends, the artificial "boxes" are damaging.

By putting a student in a category, an assigned grade encourages him to avoid his most important task--that of self-evaluation. He tends to accept the verdict of the system: if successful, he may not ask how to develop further; unsuccessful, he may feel discouraged. ("I was just a 'B' student. Of course I didn't know any Faculty members. Who would want to talk with me?" asked a typlical student. When grades are coupled with a system of impersonal lectures and final examinations, they students from entering unknown of study. It becomes advantageous to "play from strength"--to take where one feels competent, rather than risk failure--quite possible in the sense of personal instruction where. This "feedback" effect the whole purpose of teaching, which is, in Riesman's view, to help the student accomplish something new.

By sharply demarcating course examinations encourage intellectual ; the student gets the feeling he has "completed" a field of and can now move on to something else. "If one doesn't have examination the task is never done. . . Examinations seem arduous, but they are actual easy way out--a time-clock.' they tend to prescribe field is like and what the data is. A teacher may tell his students to think and evaluate things for themselves, but the examination system rewards them for figuring what he wants--"teaching is odds with the examination system defeats itself." And by providing an artificial group of rewards and unrelated to the pleasure and pain the student gets from the of material he is studying, examination and grades distort his judgment of what he likes--a very crucial in Riesman's eyes.

There are, of course, a number of objections to this line of thought might take a conservative physical position with Professor who is "unwilling to believe just didn't know anything years ago," and who dismissed educational experiments with that they want to "pull education all the time to see if the roots down." Or one could take automatic view of those who abolishing grades might hurt chances of getting into school (how can the graduate tell how you did?)--which that it is futile to start here.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.

for Papers

Supporters of the term paper tend to regard the development of intellectual skills as a more important part of education than the acquisition of information. Three hours, they say, is hardly enough time for a student to exhibit his skill in relating Furthermore, examinations put on memory and glibness, evaluation of a student should chiefly upon standards of , clarity, and perceptiveness-- which one hopes to find among adults. As one instructor put it, taking examinations is an activity to students. When you assign you treat the student like an .

In some fields of study, such as History, however, there seem to be no feasible alternatives to examinations, as the mastery of a great many facts is deemed essential.

Argument for Exams

One of the chief purposes of History courses is to teach students what happened over a fairly long period, 100 years or so. Yet a good paper entails concentrating on a very limited topic over a very short time. Only a comprehensive final examination can require students to integrate the whole range of facts in the course. It is not surprising that some of the hardiest supporters of examinations come from the History Department.

One of the most convinced of these supporters is Franklin Ford, professor of History. While he concedes that the value of exams may vary from field to field, "in history, the payoff is what you can do with the material." Examinations are good, not so much because they require students to remember everything--"the police function of examinations has been over-emphasized"--as because a good examination gives students "a real intellectual experience." Answering well-formulted examination questions, the student "sits down at the end of a course and follows a theme though a 150-year period. He gets to see the forest as well as the treets."

The "professionalism" involved in writing papers causes Ford to regard them with some suspicion. "I would hate to think that every individual in one of my courses has to prove he would be able to write an article for a scholarly magazine."

Final papers have another, more mundane, drawback. The time required to grade them intelligently is far greater than that required for examinations. In some of the College's enormous and understaffed courses, this is quite impractical.

Underlying the qualms some Faculty members have about giving up examinations are fears that students might abuse an examination-free system. To them, examinations constitute a control which assures that students will not "get by" without doing their course work. William L. Langer '15, Coolidge Professor of History, whose courses are noted for their rigorous tests, maintains that "we can't get along without a system of exams . . . because students as a class are not as responsible as they should be." For example, a lot of students leave their essays until the last minute. If the University were to adopt the German and French system (no examinations until the Senior year, when there is a series of comprehensive exams), "the mortality would be enormous."

Exams to Remain

So it appears that, at least for the near future, the semi-annual ordeal will remain with us. To be sure, its critics have quite a few arguments left: examinations create arbitrary divisions between bodies of knowledge; they encourage students to cram in a hurry and forget equally rapidly. But given the practical advantages of examinations under the present educational system, one doubts that these criticisms will prevail. From a pragmatic standpoint, one can only ask: given examinations, how can they be made more tolerable? Or one can take a radical approach and inquire whether the entire system should be changed.

One often gets the feeling that taking examinations is like playing slot machines: you toss in your hard earned studies, the grader's mind goes round and round and suddenly lo and behold! up pops a grade--often far different from the one you felt you'd won when you took the test. (In justice, it would be said that teachers probably feel the same way about students: they toss in their hard-won knowledge, our minds go round and round, etc.)

The Grader

The problem is essentially one of lack of communication between grader and graded. The grader cannot help tending to regard his task as a dreary, repetitious chore, enlivened only by an occasional witty or brilliant examination, and by the opportunity to discuss the answers with his colleagues. The student can't help regarding his grader as a mysterious nonentity who lurks in the corners during lectures and whose mental processes are utterly incomprehensible except for an occasional rumor: "easy," "a bastard," etc. Most graders lack the time to comment on exams, and some courses even refuse to return them on request.

A number of proposals have been advanced to remedy this situation. Some would require that all exams bear detailed comments; others suggest that each student have a right to confront his grader. One of the more unique suggestions is that Sanford A. Lakoff, assistant professor of Government. The present student-faculty ratio, Lakoff says, makes it "utopian" to expect elaborate comments or an individual session with a grader. Many courses might improve matters by devoting a special meeting to a "post-mortem" on the exam, but half-courses would find this difficult.

So Lakoff proposes that the graders in each major course be given a chance to publish their observations of the exam. Not only would this give the student an opportunity to learn what went on in the graders' minds--and perhaps how to write better examinations--but it would stimulate the graders' interest in their chore.

The more radical approach is taken by David Riesman '31, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences. Of each assumption underlying our educational system, Riesman seems to ask: what does it do to help or hinder the development of man into what he--in Riesman's view--ought to be? Thus he feels that American culture generally involves thinking in terms of sequences or categories which are boxed off from one another. For Riesman, the question is not one of accepting this pattern as given and of working within it, but one of deciding whether or not it is valuable. Riesman regards examinations and grading as manifestations of this pattern. A examination sharply marks the end of one course and the beginning of the next; a grade is a way of producing "packaged people"--it assigns each person to a category which is impersonal and rigid. In both cases, Riesman contends, the artificial "boxes" are damaging.

By putting a student in a category, an assigned grade encourages him to avoid his most important task--that of self-evaluation. He tends to accept the verdict of the system: if successful, he may not ask how to develop further; unsuccessful, he may feel discouraged. ("I was just a 'B' student. Of course I didn't know any Faculty members. Who would want to talk with me?" asked a typlical student. When grades are coupled with a system of impersonal lectures and final examinations, they students from entering unknown of study. It becomes advantageous to "play from strength"--to take where one feels competent, rather than risk failure--quite possible in the sense of personal instruction where. This "feedback" effect the whole purpose of teaching, which is, in Riesman's view, to help the student accomplish something new.

By sharply demarcating course examinations encourage intellectual ; the student gets the feeling he has "completed" a field of and can now move on to something else. "If one doesn't have examination the task is never done. . . Examinations seem arduous, but they are actual easy way out--a time-clock.' they tend to prescribe field is like and what the data is. A teacher may tell his students to think and evaluate things for themselves, but the examination system rewards them for figuring what he wants--"teaching is odds with the examination system defeats itself." And by providing an artificial group of rewards and unrelated to the pleasure and pain the student gets from the of material he is studying, examination and grades distort his judgment of what he likes--a very crucial in Riesman's eyes.

There are, of course, a number of objections to this line of thought might take a conservative physical position with Professor who is "unwilling to believe just didn't know anything years ago," and who dismissed educational experiments with that they want to "pull education all the time to see if the roots down." Or one could take automatic view of those who abolishing grades might hurt chances of getting into school (how can the graduate tell how you did?)--which that it is futile to start here.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.

In some fields of study, such as History, however, there seem to be no feasible alternatives to examinations, as the mastery of a great many facts is deemed essential.

Argument for Exams

One of the chief purposes of History courses is to teach students what happened over a fairly long period, 100 years or so. Yet a good paper entails concentrating on a very limited topic over a very short time. Only a comprehensive final examination can require students to integrate the whole range of facts in the course. It is not surprising that some of the hardiest supporters of examinations come from the History Department.

One of the most convinced of these supporters is Franklin Ford, professor of History. While he concedes that the value of exams may vary from field to field, "in history, the payoff is what you can do with the material." Examinations are good, not so much because they require students to remember everything--"the police function of examinations has been over-emphasized"--as because a good examination gives students "a real intellectual experience." Answering well-formulted examination questions, the student "sits down at the end of a course and follows a theme though a 150-year period. He gets to see the forest as well as the treets."

The "professionalism" involved in writing papers causes Ford to regard them with some suspicion. "I would hate to think that every individual in one of my courses has to prove he would be able to write an article for a scholarly magazine."

Final papers have another, more mundane, drawback. The time required to grade them intelligently is far greater than that required for examinations. In some of the College's enormous and understaffed courses, this is quite impractical.

Underlying the qualms some Faculty members have about giving up examinations are fears that students might abuse an examination-free system. To them, examinations constitute a control which assures that students will not "get by" without doing their course work. William L. Langer '15, Coolidge Professor of History, whose courses are noted for their rigorous tests, maintains that "we can't get along without a system of exams . . . because students as a class are not as responsible as they should be." For example, a lot of students leave their essays until the last minute. If the University were to adopt the German and French system (no examinations until the Senior year, when there is a series of comprehensive exams), "the mortality would be enormous."

Exams to Remain

So it appears that, at least for the near future, the semi-annual ordeal will remain with us. To be sure, its critics have quite a few arguments left: examinations create arbitrary divisions between bodies of knowledge; they encourage students to cram in a hurry and forget equally rapidly. But given the practical advantages of examinations under the present educational system, one doubts that these criticisms will prevail. From a pragmatic standpoint, one can only ask: given examinations, how can they be made more tolerable? Or one can take a radical approach and inquire whether the entire system should be changed.

One often gets the feeling that taking examinations is like playing slot machines: you toss in your hard earned studies, the grader's mind goes round and round and suddenly lo and behold! up pops a grade--often far different from the one you felt you'd won when you took the test. (In justice, it would be said that teachers probably feel the same way about students: they toss in their hard-won knowledge, our minds go round and round, etc.)

The Grader

The problem is essentially one of lack of communication between grader and graded. The grader cannot help tending to regard his task as a dreary, repetitious chore, enlivened only by an occasional witty or brilliant examination, and by the opportunity to discuss the answers with his colleagues. The student can't help regarding his grader as a mysterious nonentity who lurks in the corners during lectures and whose mental processes are utterly incomprehensible except for an occasional rumor: "easy," "a bastard," etc. Most graders lack the time to comment on exams, and some courses even refuse to return them on request.

A number of proposals have been advanced to remedy this situation. Some would require that all exams bear detailed comments; others suggest that each student have a right to confront his grader. One of the more unique suggestions is that Sanford A. Lakoff, assistant professor of Government. The present student-faculty ratio, Lakoff says, makes it "utopian" to expect elaborate comments or an individual session with a grader. Many courses might improve matters by devoting a special meeting to a "post-mortem" on the exam, but half-courses would find this difficult.

So Lakoff proposes that the graders in each major course be given a chance to publish their observations of the exam. Not only would this give the student an opportunity to learn what went on in the graders' minds--and perhaps how to write better examinations--but it would stimulate the graders' interest in their chore.

The more radical approach is taken by David Riesman '31, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences. Of each assumption underlying our educational system, Riesman seems to ask: what does it do to help or hinder the development of man into what he--in Riesman's view--ought to be? Thus he feels that American culture generally involves thinking in terms of sequences or categories which are boxed off from one another. For Riesman, the question is not one of accepting this pattern as given and of working within it, but one of deciding whether or not it is valuable. Riesman regards examinations and grading as manifestations of this pattern. A examination sharply marks the end of one course and the beginning of the next; a grade is a way of producing "packaged people"--it assigns each person to a category which is impersonal and rigid. In both cases, Riesman contends, the artificial "boxes" are damaging.

By putting a student in a category, an assigned grade encourages him to avoid his most important task--that of self-evaluation. He tends to accept the verdict of the system: if successful, he may not ask how to develop further; unsuccessful, he may feel discouraged. ("I was just a 'B' student. Of course I didn't know any Faculty members. Who would want to talk with me?" asked a typlical student. When grades are coupled with a system of impersonal lectures and final examinations, they students from entering unknown of study. It becomes advantageous to "play from strength"--to take where one feels competent, rather than risk failure--quite possible in the sense of personal instruction where. This "feedback" effect the whole purpose of teaching, which is, in Riesman's view, to help the student accomplish something new.

By sharply demarcating course examinations encourage intellectual ; the student gets the feeling he has "completed" a field of and can now move on to something else. "If one doesn't have examination the task is never done. . . Examinations seem arduous, but they are actual easy way out--a time-clock.' they tend to prescribe field is like and what the data is. A teacher may tell his students to think and evaluate things for themselves, but the examination system rewards them for figuring what he wants--"teaching is odds with the examination system defeats itself." And by providing an artificial group of rewards and unrelated to the pleasure and pain the student gets from the of material he is studying, examination and grades distort his judgment of what he likes--a very crucial in Riesman's eyes.

There are, of course, a number of objections to this line of thought might take a conservative physical position with Professor who is "unwilling to believe just didn't know anything years ago," and who dismissed educational experiments with that they want to "pull education all the time to see if the roots down." Or one could take automatic view of those who abolishing grades might hurt chances of getting into school (how can the graduate tell how you did?)--which that it is futile to start here.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.

By sharply demarcating course examinations encourage intellectual ; the student gets the feeling he has "completed" a field of and can now move on to something else. "If one doesn't have examination the task is never done. . . Examinations seem arduous, but they are actual easy way out--a time-clock.' they tend to prescribe field is like and what the data is. A teacher may tell his students to think and evaluate things for themselves, but the examination system rewards them for figuring what he wants--"teaching is odds with the examination system defeats itself." And by providing an artificial group of rewards and unrelated to the pleasure and pain the student gets from the of material he is studying, examination and grades distort his judgment of what he likes--a very crucial in Riesman's eyes.

There are, of course, a number of objections to this line of thought might take a conservative physical position with Professor who is "unwilling to believe just didn't know anything years ago," and who dismissed educational experiments with that they want to "pull education all the time to see if the roots down." Or one could take automatic view of those who abolishing grades might hurt chances of getting into school (how can the graduate tell how you did?)--which that it is futile to start here.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.

There are, of course, a number of objections to this line of thought might take a conservative physical position with Professor who is "unwilling to believe just didn't know anything years ago," and who dismissed educational experiments with that they want to "pull education all the time to see if the roots down." Or one could take automatic view of those who abolishing grades might hurt chances of getting into school (how can the graduate tell how you did?)--which that it is futile to start here.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.

Meanwhile, examination are posted in the Dean's Office.