As the winter term ends, I'm once again faced with the confident, unshaken belief by some students that they "just don't test well." This phrase seems to have become very well-known and is most certainly over-used.
I'm skeptical that such a condition exists. I think that there's probably no specific reason why a person who is bright, well-studied, and has the expected amount of academic ability and language skills (taking a test in a second language would be a different kind of challenge, for example) would routinely do poorly on a test because they have some anomaly - genetic or otherwise - that makes them unable to demonstrate their brilliance on a test. I'm not referring to people with anxiety disorders or phobias or learning disorders. The "poor test-takers" in my experience are students who just whip that phrase out as though it's a personality characteristic, and I'm tired of it. They often announce this even before the first test. An apparent expectation is that I should create some magical test that will demonstrate the brilliance that lies deep in the soul of this untestable. I don't mean for this to get into another one of those endless diatribes, with the same posters replying and arguing with each other about whether tests are the perfect collegiate vehicle while the rest of us drum our fingers and click on the delete key. I'm more inclined to believe that having failed to learn good study skills seems a more likely description to me than that the hapless student is saddled with some cognitive defect. Send me something. (Just kidding.) Beth Benoit University System of New Hampshire --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
