General questions about multiple choice, short answer, and essay writing on exams
Any test is an imperfect measure of your ability and efforts, and that is why it is only one way of judging your overall performance in the course. Do not loose your cool and freak out if you don't understand the assessment of your exam. A simple mathematical error may be the cause, or under the stresses of preparing for the exam and writing under a time limit, you simply may not have performed as well as you had hoped.
Here are a few explanations of the methods used in creating exams and assessing responses to multiple choice questions, short answer, and essay questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
Significant terms from our review guides are the basis of these questions. The questions and choices are designed to give you credit for being able to recognize the best of the alternative answers. In the process of discerning the answer, your thorough knowledge of the content for the course to date is often required to eliminate alternatives. Correct recognition evidences the breadth of your preparations and analysis of the term.
Question 8 of the first test, is a good example:
_____ Chang An was a. the origin of Chinese civilization, b. the origin of the Silk Road, c. the site where the Zhou defeated the Shang, d. a famous Xia archeological site.
Numerous students chose c. (the site where the Zhou defeated the Shang). This answer is incorrect because Chang'an was not yet established as a city during the transition period between the Shang and the Zhou. Furthermore, there is no evidence of exactly where the Zhou defeated the Shang. This alternative, therefore, is not relevant to the question. Chang'an was a capital during Han times and according to the map of the Han Empire, Chang'an was the origin of the Silk Road. All roads on the map emanate from it. The video series on the silk road also introduces Chang'an as the silk road's origin. In preparing for the review, a quick reference check in the index of the text would have led you to page 64 in which Chang'an's significance to the Han dynasty and the silk road is clear.
Short Answer questions
Significant terms from our review guide are the basis for these questions. Often these questions combine several terms to concentrate your analysis of terms' correlation in a theme in the content of the course to date.
For example, the first question in the first test incorporates four terms: the 'Myth of Asia,' Teggart, Jaspers, and Marx/Economic Historians. The question states: Explain briefly how Teggart, Jaspers, and Marxist-Economic historians go beyond the traditional Western view of Asia as "the other."
First of all, you would need to set up something to contrast the views of Teggart, Jaspers, and Marx/Economic historians to "go beyond." Many of you simply jotted down attributes of each of the schools, but the question asks you explain how they go beyond. Therefore, you would need to establish a quick reference point for comparing the change. For example:
Whereas, the earlier view of Asia as 'the other' held by many Western European cultures held used Asia as a counterweight to highlight Western ideals of freedom and liberty, these schools viewed Asia and China in particular as an integral part of the whole: Teggart linked China and Rome in a Eurasian historical narrative, Jaspers linked Chinese civilization to Western civilization in an "Axial Age" of philosophers; and Marxist/Economic historians viewed Chinese history as just another example of a universal tendency among civilizations going through historical stages of economic production (primitive communism, slave production, feudalism, capitalism, and modern communism).
To get all of the points, you would have needed to establish the frame of reference in showing how they went beyond the traditional view. Not doing so would result in a loss of a point or two, depending on the level of detail and analysis in your explanation of each school of thought.
In the second question, "Describe some differences and similarities in the rule of the Qin and the Han dynasties?," you would have had to have given specific examples of differences and similarities to get full credit. Merely saying that the Qin used a "harsh" form of Legalism while the Han used Confucianism and a "less harsh" style of Legalism would not be enough to get full credit. A point or two would be deducted depending the level of relevant detail given.
Essay questions
Essays are your chance to show the sophistication of your analytic skills in interpreting an issue. They should reflect the clarity of 1) expression of the problem and possibilities inherent in the issue, 2) organization of the relevant data and related analysis of that data, and 3) synthesis of all of the elements in a coherent conclusion. Because there are still numerous writing styles which communicate these three areas, it is unfair to expect three distinct divisions or paragraphs in one's essay, especially in an upper-level college course, however, these three areas remain crucial to the writing of any good essay and they form the basis for the assessment.
See the explanations the essays on the first exam for details on specific essays:
For specific feedback on your essays, please re-read the essay question and your essay again to yourself (better yet, read it aloud), then try to take the perspective of another reader and re-read it again). Someone once said that the only good writing is rewriting and you might discover some things you didn't say but thought you said, or thought you said more clearly but didn't. Discussion of your essay is a good idea but try to find the most obvious strengths and weaknesses of your writing before discussing it with the reader who assessed it. It is possible that he or she overlooked something while reading and assessing it, but grading essays are usually a painstaking process and most do their best to give as much credit as possible on essays written under pressure. Ideally we would have a chance to revise our writing at least once before a final assessment. That is the advantage of take-home essays, but they pose another set of assessment problems.