Keeping on the Course

During the examination period when most students are straining to recall items from a dimly remembered lecture, students in the intermediate German courses will be struggling to remember points which never appeared in their course material at all. The reason is each language department includes a one-hour objective proficiency test with its examination of the course material. But unlike most of the language departments, the German department rests a good deal of the student's grade on his performance in the proficiency exam.

In fact, last term students in German C and D who did not edge past 560 on this test could not, with a few exceptions, receive a mid-year grade higher than C plus, even though they might have diligently studied all of the assigned work. This is unfair to the conscientious student since the memorization of a twenty-page vocabulary list can bring a high proficiency test score to someone who never attended a class or prepared the assignments. The German department claims that students' grades on the proficiency exam are almost directly proportional to their scores on the course material. But since a healthy share of that exam consists of isolated vocabulary words and idioms, many students who have become adept at recognizing words in context would have their grades jeopardized by this policy.

Students taking intermediate courses in other languages do not encounter this problem. Though the Spanish and other departments give the proficiency test along with the final exam, they do not consider the scores when figuring their grade lists. Instead, these departments use the tests as a gauge to judge in absolute terms the success of their teaching methods for the expiring term.

The German department should consider the proficiency test similarly--using it as a balance for the courses rather than a weight for the students. The ideal final examination is set up to see how well an individual can handle the material of a course and not to register a person's ambition and ability to memorize numerous facts which mean nothing to him out of context.

An effective final examination must lead to answers which weld the student's intellectual ability to the course material. Courses in the social sciences and humanities are especially geared to this kind of exam. Although the intermediate language courses are less profound than their course catalog cousins, they, too, are susceptible to the thought-fact type examination in which the emphasis is on material gleaned from the course.