The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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9:12am on Monday, 28th October, 2024:
Anecdote
I've been steadily writing examination questions for the past few weeks, and today get to answer the final batch of them (or at least attempt to answer them; I'll change the question if one is too hard).
I like to get my exam questions out of the way so that I don't have to spend the Christmas break working on them. This is in stark contrast to at least one of my colleagues, who only ever changes the numbers in the questions he has in his exam, gets at least one of the calculations wrong EVERY TIME, and hands them in weeks after the deadline meaning that I get into trouble for not having checked them.
I look on question-creation as a design exercise. I choose topics from the module syllabus at random then see if I can figure out how to ask a question about it. Surprisingly often, these help me advance my own thinking in an area. I can't give you any examples from this year, obviously, as it would indicate what was on the exam, but here's part of a question from last year as an example:
Suppose that in the future, virtual reality interfaces become so powerful that it is impossible to distinguish the virtual from the real by appearance alone.
Discuss how such a technology would affect the concept of what a virtual world is.
This doesn't mean I enjoy setting exam questions, and I certainly don't enjoy writing model answers. Still, it does mean that some good comes out of the exercise from my perspective, if not necessarily of the exam candidates'.
According to the documentation I was given following my operation, I "should be able to return to work after 2-4 weeks", yet here I am writing and answering exam questions. I'm a martyr, I truly am.
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