1 Description
At the end of the semester, you’ll complete a seven-minute oral exam based on your essay. You’ll begin with a one-minute statement of your historical claim. I’ll then ask one question about your textual evidence, one question challenging the relationship you’ve claimed between the two thinkers, and one or two questions about relations between your essay and other material covered in the course.
The oral exam is intended to assess your understanding, not your quality as a performer. Confidence, speed, eye contact, polish and other intangibles are not grading criteria.
Oral exams will take place during finals week, December 14–18. It is likely we’ll need to make use of time outside of our finals exam time for this purpose. We’ll discuss scheduling of the oral exam as the end of the semester nears.
2 Rubric
Your oral exam is both an examination of your understanding of the material covered and discussed in your final essay and an examination of your understanding of the material of the course.
Your oral exam will be graded for evidence of preparation. You should be ready with responses to each of these questions for each of the three units not covered by your expanded essay.
Your oral exam will be graded out of 10 points (each point being worth 2% of your final grade), along the following lines:
| Points | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | You weren’t prepared |
| 1–2 | You were barely prepared |
| 3–4 | You were slightly prepared |
| 5–6 | You were prepared |
| 7–8 | You were well prepared |
| 9–10 | You were exceptionally well prepared |