Academic Tests (advice on how to do this like a pro)
One famous psychological experiment tests your intelligent quotient (your IQ--you can play with this but it won't give your results unless you pay them. Don't!). In it, you are sometimes asked how many ways can you think of to use or understand two unrelated objects. This develops your abstract brain. [It may be why nerds are smart]. The more unique combinations you can create, the higher your IQ. So it is with tests (as well as Art). See? A relevant connection.
For our purposes (teachers, professors, academics, etc.), tests are meant to "test" your understanding of texts (usually those covered in classes). Text here refers to any literary material that must be interpreted (film, operas, media, print books, visual art, etc.) As such, you can expect to take tests as long as you engage in your academic career.
While some tests objectively determine whether you know something specific, most of the ones you are likely to encounter in college test your ability to define, connect ideas (synthesis), evaluate your subject based on agreed-upon criteria (critique), illustrate examples drawn from careful reading or attention to details, to draw these examples into patterns (analysis), and to explain the significance of your results clearly. In other words, you are meant to be able to "read" a "text", understand the author's ideas, find and explain patterns, draw connections and then apply this new understanding to create something new and original.
A teacher (like myself) separates an answer into different gradients of "correctness"--these being whether or not the information you are providing is relevant, accurate, insightful, and/or whether or not you can prove you understood and analyzed a text thoroughly enough, and thereby illustrate how that text can be explained or utilized in a new (or deeper) way.
Scores of 59 or less are failures. If you don't show up, you can't play. If you don't enter the contest, you can't win. Only those completely in over their heads should worry. There's not much we can do for you now. If you don't understand and don't ask questions and don't practice to get better at a skill or knowledge, then you're on your own. We did what we could do. The rest is, as Shakespeare says, silence.
60-70 - (lower range of average or below average): Probably didn't read, but if the text was read, it may not have been fully understood, or at least there is no evidence that this may be the case. The work may simply be summary (what happened) but you are unable to explain WHY or HOW something happened, or WHAT the larger, more-connected idea might have been. You might have just parroted back what you can remember from the teacher during class. Very little is your own thought here at this level. Confusion and lack of detail lower your grade. You likely did not read carefully, take notes, pay attention, remember much about the experience, or get much from doing the little work or effort you put into the assignment. You might be alive, though. Good for you. Would you like fries with that?
71-79 - (average answer): You probably read (some parts more carefully than others), the text may have made an impression on you, but you are unable to fully describe or detail your understanding of the topic (lacking some analysis). Your answer is mostly summary, but with some textual evidence here and there that might have been easily observed. You might not have thought deeply about the connections or relevance of the subject matter, but you at least understood it well enough to b.s. or think your way through to some conclusion when forced to (lack of criticism). Unfortunately, this is usually the conclusion that others also came to, making you an average Joe (lack of analysis and critical thinking or creativity). You might not have had much textual evidence to prove you understood the material on a deeper level, or you didn't use sophisticated vocabulary that goes along with the discipline (lack of understanding), or could not explain consciously what you probably understood unconsciously. Or you couldn't be bothered to answer fully, or you had a bad hair day or upset stomach, the flu, or some other malady that kept you from doing your best thinking (lack of effort).
80-89 - (above average answer; good answer, shows some promise): Scores in this range are between the higher answers below and the lower answers above. Your answers/illustrations/examples are uneven, but they show occasional glimmers of brilliance. Wordiness, lack of focus, lack of specificity when needed, lack of evaluation or position, lack of communication through occasional errors in mechanics or formatting, or overstuffed paragraphs (throwing everything at us without understanding what is most relevant or important--lack of judgment or discrimination, that is...) usually weaken these papers. Still, there are some gems among the rocks. Usually good summary and evaluation or criticism. Some good analysis and the occasional synthesis of ideas are revealed.
90-94 - (very good answer, shows promise, but may not be as insightful as the highest level or most critical thinker) Very, very good. More gems than rocks. Summary is in the right place and used only when needed to clarify or guide. Analysis is specific and exact (good analysis), using textual evidence to support claims that are creative and relatively well-thought out (good summary and/or criticism), description and specificity connects the text and the world at large (good synthesis), enough relevant criticism is used to evaluate a position (good criticism), often clear and insightful in places (good analysis), more creative or insightful than the papers below this score (good synthesis), uses most vocabulary correctly, but there are some weaknesses in this area. Often these papers are more unfocused and less concise, clear, or insightful than the highest papers. They show a lot of effort, good thinking, but it's Watson compared to Sherlock Holmes. One of you is a genius (and you should be able to deduce that it's not necessarily you, Dr. Watson). Still, Watson is very respectable. He's just not the hero of the stories. You're very nearly there. With more rewrites and crafting you might be.
95 - 100 - (exceptional or highly insightful answer): Mostly gems. Sherlock's clever brain, or Inspector Poirot's brilliant deduction with his little grey cells. Razor-focused. You get the idea. This resembles the scores just above in the 90-94 range, but my! How unique and clever! These answers are impressive. They are exemplary. Take the best of all these things and then, make it creative, relevant, and concise. Nary a mistake or weakness in this chain of thought. What we call "brilliant"--because it is (and you are...)
Final thoughts: The more you can show that you understand the text (or the subject), the more you can connect with the text and other outside textual sources (i.e., synthesis), the more you can show or illustrate how these sources fit together into a pattern, the more you can critique or evaluate the sources based on agreed-upon criteria (for our example literature and how it works effectively), the more you can explain how what you observed works together using sophisticated agreed-upon vocabulary (again, literary terminology), the more you can find new connections or little thought-about connections and clarify these for the reader, the higher your skill, and therefore, the higher your critical thinking, the higher your grade.
If you want to be a better scholar, you can improve by working at it. Knowing this is just one of the gifts I am imparting to you. Use the force well, my young Jedi's. It may, one day, save your life.
For our purposes (teachers, professors, academics, etc.), tests are meant to "test" your understanding of texts (usually those covered in classes). Text here refers to any literary material that must be interpreted (film, operas, media, print books, visual art, etc.) As such, you can expect to take tests as long as you engage in your academic career.
While some tests objectively determine whether you know something specific, most of the ones you are likely to encounter in college test your ability to define, connect ideas (synthesis), evaluate your subject based on agreed-upon criteria (critique), illustrate examples drawn from careful reading or attention to details, to draw these examples into patterns (analysis), and to explain the significance of your results clearly. In other words, you are meant to be able to "read" a "text", understand the author's ideas, find and explain patterns, draw connections and then apply this new understanding to create something new and original.
A teacher (like myself) separates an answer into different gradients of "correctness"--these being whether or not the information you are providing is relevant, accurate, insightful, and/or whether or not you can prove you understood and analyzed a text thoroughly enough, and thereby illustrate how that text can be explained or utilized in a new (or deeper) way.
Scores of 59 or less are failures. If you don't show up, you can't play. If you don't enter the contest, you can't win. Only those completely in over their heads should worry. There's not much we can do for you now. If you don't understand and don't ask questions and don't practice to get better at a skill or knowledge, then you're on your own. We did what we could do. The rest is, as Shakespeare says, silence.
60-70 - (lower range of average or below average): Probably didn't read, but if the text was read, it may not have been fully understood, or at least there is no evidence that this may be the case. The work may simply be summary (what happened) but you are unable to explain WHY or HOW something happened, or WHAT the larger, more-connected idea might have been. You might have just parroted back what you can remember from the teacher during class. Very little is your own thought here at this level. Confusion and lack of detail lower your grade. You likely did not read carefully, take notes, pay attention, remember much about the experience, or get much from doing the little work or effort you put into the assignment. You might be alive, though. Good for you. Would you like fries with that?
71-79 - (average answer): You probably read (some parts more carefully than others), the text may have made an impression on you, but you are unable to fully describe or detail your understanding of the topic (lacking some analysis). Your answer is mostly summary, but with some textual evidence here and there that might have been easily observed. You might not have thought deeply about the connections or relevance of the subject matter, but you at least understood it well enough to b.s. or think your way through to some conclusion when forced to (lack of criticism). Unfortunately, this is usually the conclusion that others also came to, making you an average Joe (lack of analysis and critical thinking or creativity). You might not have had much textual evidence to prove you understood the material on a deeper level, or you didn't use sophisticated vocabulary that goes along with the discipline (lack of understanding), or could not explain consciously what you probably understood unconsciously. Or you couldn't be bothered to answer fully, or you had a bad hair day or upset stomach, the flu, or some other malady that kept you from doing your best thinking (lack of effort).
80-89 - (above average answer; good answer, shows some promise): Scores in this range are between the higher answers below and the lower answers above. Your answers/illustrations/examples are uneven, but they show occasional glimmers of brilliance. Wordiness, lack of focus, lack of specificity when needed, lack of evaluation or position, lack of communication through occasional errors in mechanics or formatting, or overstuffed paragraphs (throwing everything at us without understanding what is most relevant or important--lack of judgment or discrimination, that is...) usually weaken these papers. Still, there are some gems among the rocks. Usually good summary and evaluation or criticism. Some good analysis and the occasional synthesis of ideas are revealed.
90-94 - (very good answer, shows promise, but may not be as insightful as the highest level or most critical thinker) Very, very good. More gems than rocks. Summary is in the right place and used only when needed to clarify or guide. Analysis is specific and exact (good analysis), using textual evidence to support claims that are creative and relatively well-thought out (good summary and/or criticism), description and specificity connects the text and the world at large (good synthesis), enough relevant criticism is used to evaluate a position (good criticism), often clear and insightful in places (good analysis), more creative or insightful than the papers below this score (good synthesis), uses most vocabulary correctly, but there are some weaknesses in this area. Often these papers are more unfocused and less concise, clear, or insightful than the highest papers. They show a lot of effort, good thinking, but it's Watson compared to Sherlock Holmes. One of you is a genius (and you should be able to deduce that it's not necessarily you, Dr. Watson). Still, Watson is very respectable. He's just not the hero of the stories. You're very nearly there. With more rewrites and crafting you might be.
95 - 100 - (exceptional or highly insightful answer): Mostly gems. Sherlock's clever brain, or Inspector Poirot's brilliant deduction with his little grey cells. Razor-focused. You get the idea. This resembles the scores just above in the 90-94 range, but my! How unique and clever! These answers are impressive. They are exemplary. Take the best of all these things and then, make it creative, relevant, and concise. Nary a mistake or weakness in this chain of thought. What we call "brilliant"--because it is (and you are...)
Final thoughts: The more you can show that you understand the text (or the subject), the more you can connect with the text and other outside textual sources (i.e., synthesis), the more you can show or illustrate how these sources fit together into a pattern, the more you can critique or evaluate the sources based on agreed-upon criteria (for our example literature and how it works effectively), the more you can explain how what you observed works together using sophisticated agreed-upon vocabulary (again, literary terminology), the more you can find new connections or little thought-about connections and clarify these for the reader, the higher your skill, and therefore, the higher your critical thinking, the higher your grade.
If you want to be a better scholar, you can improve by working at it. Knowing this is just one of the gifts I am imparting to you. Use the force well, my young Jedi's. It may, one day, save your life.
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