Give me a grade

Skybird · 06-21-10, 03:23 AM

As Takeda already hinted, it is in parts something like a "Themaverfehlung" (=an essay missing the subject). You start to lay out a line of thought that is not too directly related to the questions, and this sideline of thinking you then embark on - in strength. That is a bit like this old joke about a schoolboy who for the exams has learned everything about worms, but then get asked about elephants, and so he starts answering: "The elephant is a big animal with a trunk. This trunk is formed loike a big,m giant worm. There are flatworms, roundworms...etc"

You did not care enough for the question, because you had something on your mind you wanted to focus on - which unfortunately had not too much to do with the question.

This can happen for two cases: first, like in your case, the student has something on his mind he is too fixiated on so that he misses the question, or ignores it to a too wide degree. This is what has happened to you. Second, he does not stick to the original subject because he lets himself carried away in arguments and side-arguments and additions to sidearguments, and he gets lost in a growing flood of details and loses the central thread. This is my special hobby.

Sometimes I must struggle hard not to excel in it.

School or university papers likes this are no ideological battleground. If you are not able to separate your "agenda"

from the real subject of an academical excercise, then you will run into trouble.

Stick to the thread, don't turn it into an opportunity to run a "crusade" - that you can do on GT forum.

I really think that your personal challenge is to think beyond your established personal schemes.

It's not about me agreeing with your answer or not, in principle you make your stand and then defend it - I see that for sure. But that stand of yours happens to be only loosely related to the subject. Too loosely, for my taste. I would expect the prof not to be too happy.

From your economic disucssions in GT I see you are a stubborn defender of your ideas, and it is very difficult to reach you with details or ideas that first need to break through this armour of established answers you surround yourself with. My subjective perception, but that's the way I see you. I think your challenge really is to become able to establish a greater mental openess for different concepts as well, in order to really compare your own answers to these and check the validity of the one - or the other. Like in this essay you quote above, you often seem to somewhat fall back by reflex to that fortress of ideas about how things are, and I cannot help but sometimes have the impression that the defence of this fortress is quite unflexible, static and depending on always falling back onto the same reaction schemes, like a spring. I think that somehow this pattern is what got you trapped again in that essay of yours.

This answer goes a bit beyond a fact-oriented reply, and is even a bit personal. I only do so because of our long PM disucssions some months back, since that gave me a bit more of a personal impression of you. This, and the several very long essays you have produced in GT when it was a topic about economic theory.

In that essay of yours you maybe failed because you lack the flexibility to step away from yourself and your own convictions, by that you drew the answer you gave to that preset position of yours, ignoring that that maybe had little to do with the question being asked. If that would be true, the challenge set up to you is not so much about intellect, knowledge and mind, but maybe a personality feature of yours. And in that case it would be a mistake to change courses or even schools. Start exploring yourself instead.

If there are any docents/profs whom you trust, ask them about their impression about you personally, how they perceive you.

My old - and much liked - prof who had a major share in leading me through university, used to say something like this: "most problems students have with learning, come from just two issues in most cases: they either have never learned how to efficiently learn, or they are so fixiated on what they already have on mind that this hinders them to think beyond their own brainworld, may it be for understanding a different argument than theirs, may it be focus on something they were not focussed on before". And when I look back to my time at university and the guys I knew there, I must say that he was right.

Don't change school so easily. Don't give up that course and prof too early. Consider to ask him for a personal conversation about yourself, and the problems you feel confronted with. If he is fair in his business, he will allow that. Don't tell him about yourself, but ask him about yourself, his perception. And consider for some moments that maybe he sees you right even if he violates your self-definitions.

Tchocky · 06-21-10, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

As Takeda already hinted, it is in parts something like a "Themaverfehlung" (=an essay missing the subject). You start to lay out a line of thought that is not too directly related to the questions, and this sideline of thinking you then embark on - in strength. That is a bit like this old joke about a schoolboy who for the exams has learned everything about worms, but then get asked about elephants, and so he starts answering: "The elephant is a big animal with a trunk. This trunk is formed loike a big,m giant worm. There are flatworms, roundworms...etc"

It took me most of my first year of uni to get rid of that habit, it's a tough one to break.

Good luck with the repeat, Lance

Skybird · 06-21-10, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tchocky

It took me most of my first year of uni to get rid of that habit, it's a tough one to break.

Whom you tell!

I wrote very good free essays at high school both in German and English, usually only A and B grades - the only "themaverfehlung" (missed subject) I have ever produced in my school life at school was during the final Abitur-paper (=final exams) in English, the very last paper I ever wrote for school. - "E".

And at university, the final written diploma report I wrote together with a girlfriend, we had to restart again from scratch and with a new topic - after having spend 5 months on the old one, because I managed to bring us into a plethoray of distracting details until we did not had any clear understanding anymore what our project originally had been about and the supervising prof threatened to give us a "fail". Learning that frustrating lesson inside out, the new work became much better, "A".

If there is one golden rule for written works at university, then this: stay on topic, and keep the line of argument simple.

CaptainHaplo · 06-21-10, 04:59 PM

Undersea - I am going to offer one last piece of advice, along with some encouragement. First - it seems the Prof. understands you more than you think, your really "ahead" - aka the elevator - vs the rest, but he needs you to establish the curriculum foundation. Work with him - his statement indicates he is willing to let you fairly. That should lighten your mind considerably.

Now - to the advice. Whatever the assignment, make the commitment to go back over it after your done with 2 specific goals in mind. The first, and most critical goal is to look back at the questions that were asked, and in reading your responses, determine if it is CLEAR whether your answer was a yes or a no to each question. If you can't find those answers clearly - aka spelled out - then you need to redo it so that you can. Second, limit yourself to no more than 5% over on the words. If they say 500 words, then you can get away with a max 525, to complete the last thought. If you can't get it under that, then you need to find another way to convey your thoughts, or change the points.

This episode is a great learning opportunity for you. Let me see if I can help you on the "tangents" bit. You are now in college. You mentioned that this was alot like the Marines. In many ways your right. Every student in that class has completed "basic" in a sense, each of you have the foundation already. He doesn't want you to explain the foundation - he wants you to build on it as he teaches you to. Just like when a platoon gets a few new bald heads from Ellis, there is an expectation that you already know some things. Go from that point. Don't explain what you already "know" - don't build the foundation all over again. In essence, don't go through "basic" again every time.

Remember the difference between when you were fresh out of your initial training and hit your first assignment? Then compare that to when you were years in, comfortable and established. Right now your in that initial phase, everything needs to be crystal clear. But that is making you lose the focus. So always - ALWAYS go back and look at the original assignment and then at your work and verify you answered every point put to you, even if you didn't do them each as clearly as you would have liked. Remember, your not in a debate with this, he wants to see you understand the lessons and the process, he isn't keeping score on whether you "win" an arguement.

06-21-10, 07:08 PM

The situation looks 110% better.

He gave you a second shot, which means we can't use the opposite politics stance.

He's already come BETTER THAN half way for you.
Now it's your responsability to show him a return on his investment.
You can do it. And I'm confident that you can do it well.

06-21-10, 03:23 AM	#1
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,696 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	As Takeda already hinted, it is in parts something like a "Themaverfehlung" (=an essay missing the subject). You start to lay out a line of thought that is not too directly related to the questions, and this sideline of thinking you then embark on - in strength. That is a bit like this old joke about a schoolboy who for the exams has learned everything about worms, but then get asked about elephants, and so he starts answering: "The elephant is a big animal with a trunk. This trunk is formed loike a big,m giant worm. There are flatworms, roundworms...etc" You did not care enough for the question, because you had something on your mind you wanted to focus on - which unfortunately had not too much to do with the question. This can happen for two cases: first, like in your case, the student has something on his mind he is too fixiated on so that he misses the question, or ignores it to a too wide degree. This is what has happened to you. Second, he does not stick to the original subject because he lets himself carried away in arguments and side-arguments and additions to sidearguments, and he gets lost in a growing flood of details and loses the central thread. This is my special hobby. Sometimes I must struggle hard not to excel in it. School or university papers likes this are no ideological battleground. If you are not able to separate your "agenda" from the real subject of an academical excercise, then you will run into trouble. Stick to the thread, don't turn it into an opportunity to run a "crusade" - that you can do on GT forum. I really think that your personal challenge is to think beyond your established personal schemes. It's not about me agreeing with your answer or not, in principle you make your stand and then defend it - I see that for sure. But that stand of yours happens to be only loosely related to the subject. Too loosely, for my taste. I would expect the prof not to be too happy. From your economic disucssions in GT I see you are a stubborn defender of your ideas, and it is very difficult to reach you with details or ideas that first need to break through this armour of established answers you surround yourself with. My subjective perception, but that's the way I see you. I think your challenge really is to become able to establish a greater mental openess for different concepts as well, in order to really compare your own answers to these and check the validity of the one - or the other. Like in this essay you quote above, you often seem to somewhat fall back by reflex to that fortress of ideas about how things are, and I cannot help but sometimes have the impression that the defence of this fortress is quite unflexible, static and depending on always falling back onto the same reaction schemes, like a spring. I think that somehow this pattern is what got you trapped again in that essay of yours. This answer goes a bit beyond a fact-oriented reply, and is even a bit personal. I only do so because of our long PM disucssions some months back, since that gave me a bit more of a personal impression of you. This, and the several very long essays you have produced in GT when it was a topic about economic theory. In that essay of yours you maybe failed because you lack the flexibility to step away from yourself and your own convictions, by that you drew the answer you gave to that preset position of yours, ignoring that that maybe had little to do with the question being asked. If that would be true, the challenge set up to you is not so much about intellect, knowledge and mind, but maybe a personality feature of yours. And in that case it would be a mistake to change courses or even schools. Start exploring yourself instead. If there are any docents/profs whom you trust, ask them about their impression about you personally, how they perceive you. My old - and much liked - prof who had a major share in leading me through university, used to say something like this: "most problems students have with learning, come from just two issues in most cases: they either have never learned how to efficiently learn, or they are so fixiated on what they already have on mind that this hinders them to think beyond their own brainworld, may it be for understanding a different argument than theirs, may it be focus on something they were not focussed on before". And when I look back to my time at university and the guys I knew there, I must say that he was right. Don't change school so easily. Don't give up that course and prof too early. Consider to ask him for a personal conversation about yourself, and the problems you feel confronted with. If he is fair in his business, he will allow that. Don't tell him about yourself, but ask him about yourself, his perception. And consider for some moments that maybe he sees you right even if he violates your self-definitions. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

06-21-10, 04:59 PM	#4
CaptainHaplo Silent Hunter Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 4,404 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 0	Undersea - I am going to offer one last piece of advice, along with some encouragement. First - it seems the Prof. understands you more than you think, your really "ahead" - aka the elevator - vs the rest, but he needs you to establish the curriculum foundation. Work with him - his statement indicates he is willing to let you fairly. That should lighten your mind considerably. Now - to the advice. Whatever the assignment, make the commitment to go back over it after your done with 2 specific goals in mind. The first, and most critical goal is to look back at the questions that were asked, and in reading your responses, determine if it is CLEAR whether your answer was a yes or a no to each question. If you can't find those answers clearly - aka spelled out - then you need to redo it so that you can. Second, limit yourself to no more than 5% over on the words. If they say 500 words, then you can get away with a max 525, to complete the last thought. If you can't get it under that, then you need to find another way to convey your thoughts, or change the points. This episode is a great learning opportunity for you. Let me see if I can help you on the "tangents" bit. You are now in college. You mentioned that this was alot like the Marines. In many ways your right. Every student in that class has completed "basic" in a sense, each of you have the foundation already. He doesn't want you to explain the foundation - he wants you to build on it as he teaches you to. Just like when a platoon gets a few new bald heads from Ellis, there is an expectation that you already know some things. Go from that point. Don't explain what you already "know" - don't build the foundation all over again. In essence, don't go through "basic" again every time. Remember the difference between when you were fresh out of your initial training and hit your first assignment? Then compare that to when you were years in, comfortable and established. Right now your in that initial phase, everything needs to be crystal clear. But that is making you lose the focus. So always - ALWAYS go back and look at the original assignment and then at your work and verify you answered every point put to you, even if you didn't do them each as clearly as you would have liked. Remember, your not in a debate with this, he wants to see you understand the lessons and the process, he isn't keeping score on whether you "win" an arguement. __________________ Good Hunting! Captain Haplo

06-21-10, 07:08 PM	#5
Snestorm Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	The situation looks 110% better. He gave you a second shot, which means we can't use the opposite politics stance. He's already come BETTER THAN half way for you. Now it's your responsability to show him a return on his investment. You can do it. And I'm confident that you can do it well.