"READING PERIOD: ONE HOUR"

Now that midyear examinations are over it seems time to bring forward a criticism which has been made before of the method of examining students on their reading period work. At present this is done by means of a question on the midyear to which the student is supposed to devote an hour, or in some cases a half an hour, of his time.

This means of testing the work has several drawbacks except in a few courses, where the reading period work is closely integrated with the rest. In the first place the time devoted to the question is doubly disproportionate both to the remainder of the examination and to the amount of reading supposedly done during the reading period. The relation of the scope of the regular work in the course to the ground covered in the two week preceding the midyear period is not such as to warrant the setting aside of a whole hour from the examination to test the student's knowledge of the latter. On the other hand, even an hour, in many courses, is by no means a sufficient length of time for an intelligent discussion of the work done during the reading period. Involving a variety of choices as it does, the question must be general in its phrasing, but the student has to content himself with jotting down enough facts and quotations to convince the corrector that he has done his work. There is little opportunity for the working out of a thoughtful summary of the reading along the lines of one's own intellect, which the reading period ought to encourage.

It would be far better to abandon the idea of "testing" the student and instead of answering a question on the examination, let him write a thesis beforehand, with his books in front of him and plenty of time to do his thinking. In this way there would be ample time for examination on the ground covered in the regular work of the course and a better chance to demonstrate the extent of one's real understanding of the work done outside.