In my introductory weather and climate course, scores on Exam 2 typically slide considerably. Sometimes, the average drops 10-15% from Exam 1. I have no hard evidence, but my suspicion is that scores go down because the primary topic is humidity and atmospheric moisture, a topic many students find quite difficult to grasp. However, although some students do worse on the second exam,
there are always several who do much better. How?? They figure out that my classes are not about rote memorization -- that I'm serious why I say that I care about
critical thinking skills, and that I care about
problem-solving ability. And they make a conscious effort to change their study habits. To continue just "studying the vocab" is a quick route to a failing grade.
I asked one such student -- who went from a C+ on Exam 1
to a perfect score on Exam 2 -- what she did differently. Her response:
To the people who say "I'm just not good at science," I say
stop it! This student is a political science major and goes on to present a universal truth:
analytical ability is a key to success in college regardless of your discipline, not just in the "sciences."
P.S.: That's all for this post, but I figured it might be helpful to show an example exam question. In large courses (>50), exams are strictly multiple choice and there are typically N = length_of_class/2 questions on an exam.
See also "
What 'the tests count for too much' really means"
