Essay Test Questions

[Rageaholic]

I hate them so much!!! :mad:

Typically at my school, tests are multiple choice. Some may have some short answer (one sentense or less) or maybe simple equations if it's math or science, but they are typically quick, straight forward, and not too difficult to study for.

Well then you get the oddball professor who loves to torture students with long essay questions, I'm talking 2 to 3 pages of writting for each test!! Now I actually enjoy writting essays, but not from stuff I have to memorize! And with such little time to not only write the essays, but complete the other questions as well, it's a wonder anyone even gets all of it done in time. I know I've had to skip some parts just to save time (and my sanity).

If you're going to have essay questions, at least make it open book or take home. That way, I don't have to write my essays from pure memory, nor do I feel rushed. I really hope I don't get any more professors who like essay questions cause they would probably be the only one in the class who does.

[AdminAssistant]

Essay questions are the best way to test a student's understanding of the material. All a multiple choice test encourages is rote memorization. Trust me, I would rather give my students multiple choice tests, as essay tests take much, MUCH longer to grade. But that actually does them a disservice, since they can get away with just memorizing some facts that then they can forget the next day. An essay test requires a deeper knowledge and understanding of a subject, and therefore promotes better learning. (You know, learning, the purpose of going to college.) And yes, you should be able to do this in a classroom, without notes, and in a certain period of time.

[Greenday]

Essay questions are the best way to test a student's understanding of the material.

Exactly. As my Tai Chi teacher said today, "Anyone can memorize some facts or names." If you can't explain it, you don't actually know it. Teachers who give essays where the topics aren't given in advance are rough. Luckily my history teacher gives us the topics a week in advance and we only have to do one of the three. Some people try to memorize the entire essay they want and I think they are making it too hard on themselves. Just memorize the main points/answers and turn them into sentences.

[insertNameHere]

I didn't mind short response ones where they wanted maybe a paragraph or two. and they only had two or three essay questions on the test because well some courses you really didn't have enough time for even that many if you had 40 other questions to also answer in 90min

[McDreidel09]

I agree with GreenDay and Admin. My philosophy professor does this. We only have 52 minutes to complete the test and we also have to do multiple choice,true/false, short answer, and an essay. Plus, he is very picky.

Maybe you can try doing the essay part first, then go back and do the rest of the test?

[Fryk]

I for one love essay questions. It's easier to get credit for being CLOSE to right, even if you don't get all the way there. Most teachers will grade the entire content of the essay, not just your final conclusion. And, as was the case a couple of times when I was in college, you completely disagree with the question, you can get credit for explaining why, as long as you back it up.

And if worse comes to worse, you can at least get SOME credit for BSing your way through :: ).

[AdminAssistant]

And if worse comes to worse, you can at least get SOME credit for BSing your way through :: ).

Yep. Essay tests give me a lot of leniency in grading. We're given a basic rubric by our professor to go by, but it's mostly up to us (he checks a couple of our exams at random to make sure we're on track).

[jackfaire]

I can BS an essay question and convince the prof that Neil Armstrong bounced the Moon like a basketball but I can't do that on multiple choice.

[lordlundar]

Yeah, I'm a mixed bag on it. Why? Well, I like it because you can explain things from your own perspective. More than a couple of teachers I had basically told us that if you don't agree with the material as it's presented, then in your essay, explain why you don't agree with it and cite your source. It made for some very interesting results and not only encouraged people to think, but also to question the world around them.

On the other hand, while my local school standards were relatively loose on the subject grading, they were incredibly tight on the essay structure. More than a few classmates came out with better grades than I because while from a subject perspective the essay was crap, from an essay structure perspective, it was nearly perfect. "A well written piece of shit" as one teacher put it.

[Rageaholic]

I for one love essay questions. It's easier to get credit for being CLOSE to right, even if you don't get all the way there. Most teachers will grade the entire content of the essay, not just your final conclusion. And, as was the case a couple of times when I was in college, you completely disagree with the question, you can get credit for explaining why, as long as you back it up.

And if worse comes to worse, you can at least get SOME credit for BSing your way through :: ).

Well that's true, I usually get some credit for knowing the basics. The problem is that these essays expect expert knowledge in the topic. I'm glad you have a choice, but in this case, it's not a wide range of choices and you never know what it's gonna be on. (that's what drives me nuts about studying for tests).

That's why I think multiple choices are usually better. As long as they aren't on trivial things and focus on the main points of what you're learning, you can easily study and pass. These essay tests are a bitch because it requires knowing too many specifics as examples. Yes, I've had that problem with MC tests as well, but mostly with essays. There is only so much I can remember. If the essays were more broad, they wouldn't be as hard, but in my case, they require too many specifics.

[Fryk]

I guess it all boils down to the prof, and their preferences. If you DARE to disagree with some of them, they'll express their dismay in grade form. And the thing I can't stand AT ALL is the prof who thinks that how much is on the page counts for as much as the thought behind it. If I can make a well-reasoned argument in one page, covering all my arguments and backing them up, WHO cares how long it is???

[Rageaholic]

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?

What gets me about these particular essays are that each essay includes 5 questions and all of them demand examples. While I got some leeway, it wasn't much and there were specific things that needed to be memorized. Believe me, I wasn't the only student who had problems with these. The student who was probably the best and most knowledgable one in the class had explained that he couldn't get all the essays done because they were too much. The instructer herself had to cut down on some of them because everyone struggled with the first test.

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.

[jackfaire]

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.

[Plaidman]

Most of my tests have been essay with the exception of a few. Seriously, its collage, not high school. Your suppose to know this stuff. Spend endless nights studying it so that you know it better then the back of your hand.

It's not easy by any scretch of the mind. I thought I would go crazy over trying to memorize every freaking part of the human heart, functions, names of parts, be able to put it together from memory, right down to each indvindial freaking papillary layer. But hey, that was over two weeks. That's not including the several page reports I had to do for another class, and the other resource paper I had to write on different companies and such.

I never had easy time at school. Just don't have the brains for it. But I been able to keep up with pretty much straight A's mostly.

So If i can freaking do it, anyone can.

[McDreidel09]

the thing I can't stand AT ALL is the prof who thinks that how much is on the page counts for as much as the thought behind it. If I can make a well-reasoned argument in one page, covering all my arguments and backing them up, WHO cares how long it is???

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.

What is weird though, is that I had more essay questions on tests in High School than now, in College (thus far). I love how over-hyped teachers got about preparing for us for college and it hasn't been as bad as they said, so far. But then again, I've always been a school type of person, so I'm just in my preferred environment, I guess.

[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.