Tests are not fun. I like to write them, and all, because if an A student has read the book, that student is going to get an A. Others, those who are not A students, do not get A’s on a well-written test. And, if you don’t read, it becomes painfully obvious to all involved.
But then there are other tests. Today was vocabulary. I refer to a vocabulary test as a “baby test.” Forgive me if you don’t want a baby associated with a vocabulary test, but COME ON! This is Honors English we are talking about here. The students get 20 words on Monday, homework is due on Wednesday, and a test is Friday. The homework is completing the sentences, synonyms, antonyms, and choosing the right word. Pretty basic stuff. The homework familiarizes them with the words for the test on Friday. The test is nothing more than their 20 words, spelled out alphabetically on the left-hand side, and the definitions of these words on the right-hand side. There are no tricks. The definitions are almost directly from the book. All they have to do is match the definition to the word. No spelling. Just matching. They have three minutes. Good students are done in around a minute.
Today, students did okay, but there were scores of zero, two, two, three, four . . . Really? Okay, maybe they had a bad day and weren’t ready for this. It might be new behavior. However, many of the students who received a poor score on the vocabulary test did not miss any on the homework. Forty problems, forty correct. Today, the same students could not match the same definitions to hardly any vocabulary words.
I also had them turn in a paper on Oedipus, or Sophocles, or Antigone. Anything they could find online that would provide a backstory for Antigone, which we start on Monday. ALL the text they would have would be copied and pasted. The only original words would be the name, date, period, and title. But I tested them again, making sure they followed simple directions of how to format the paper. Inch margins, 12 font, Times New Roman–they’ve probably known the drill since 4th grade. To add insult to injury, I gave them a perfect example–handed to them as a direction sheet–that they could follow line by line. Out of 65 students, 21 did it correctly. Was I being mean to ask for it to be done a certain way? Sure. But they were given exact directions that were not hard and only a third did it correctly.
Two papers would have counted and made the number 23, but the two students who turned in those two papers, turned in the exact same paper, except for the name, date, and period. Bad move, but that was their test of me. I passed. I am not thrilled that I passed, but such is life.
This behavior has been acceptable in their pasts. Calgon, take me away.