It's around this time of the semester that students begin taking their midterms and start praying to the partial-credit gods, as one economics professor famously puts it. Arguably one of the best things ever created (after McGriddles and the iPod nano), partial credit is quite simply incredible.
If midterms are like rough ocean water (and they are for purposes of this bizarre analogy), then partial credit is the lifeguard on duty-the David Hasselhoff, if you will. As students and beachgoers, all we have to do is at least pretend like we are drowning and the lifeguard will undoubtedly come and rescue us.
I remember during one math exam freshman year I had absolutely no idea how to do a certain problem. So, I just relied on the knowledge that partial credit would throw its metaphorical arms around me and drag my clueless body to shore. I took a deep breath and simply wrote down math equations that I knew were true. I scribbled the Pythagorean Theorem and that A + B = B + A. How could I be marked wrong for something that was obviously right?
I got so carried away by the thought of getting partial credit that I forgot about math and just started writing down factual sentences. The Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. John Adams was the second president of the United States. "Late Registration" was the best album of 2005.
Now, I still believe in the "partial credit as Hasselhoff" analogy. However, as I learned after that math test, sometimes you get '90s Baywatch Hasselhoff and other times you get drunken, trying-unsuccessfully-to-eat-a-Wendy's-hamburger Hasselhoff.
It was then that I realized the god I should have been praying to was the god of extra credit.
Engineers can hold onto their precious partial credit like Gollum, but we in the humanities know that extra credit is where it's really at. I personally have been known to seek out ways to score bonus points with more drive than a Tiger Woods tee shot.
Of course, we are all guilty of doing things only because of supposed extra credit. If a professor tells you that there's going to be a fascinating guest speaker on campus, your first thought is probably not, "In which room will 'The Oceanographic Inaccuracies of "Finding Nemo"' be taking place?" (By the way, the title of slide five is "Fish Can't Actually Talk.") If you're like me, your initial response to such an announcement is to wonder whether attendance will be counted as extra credit.
There's nothing wrong with that way of thinking, mind you. Throughout our lives we are taught to look for incentives in everything we do and, not surprisingly, those extra enticements can be found everywhere. For example, nearly all game shows have bonus rounds, from "Family Feud"'s "Fast Money" to "Double Dare"'s "Slopstacle Course," and I don't think they'd work very well if there weren't extra prizes. I mean, no father I know would pick a giant nostril for an orange flag unless there was a vacation on the line.
And yet, extra credit, including here at Duke, is often viewed much more negatively than its credit sibling. It's like the Stephen Baldwin to partial credit's Alec. There's this idea floating around that if you do something for extra credit you are simply trying to boost your grade and nothing else.
Well, I respectfully disagree. So what if we're often more in need of points than whoever's playing Roger Federer (All I need is a Thierry Henry reference in this column and I'd have mentioned the entire cast of the Gillette Champions Ad.). This craving for points doesn't mean we're not interested in the material too.
Look, if we're not that interested, extra credit might just motivate us to explore a completely new, superfluous topic, like Canadian studies, which really exists-check ACES. (On a side note: What in the world do they teach you in Canadian studies? Okay class, repeat after me: The beaver sits next to the maple leaf, eh.)
But seriously, my point is that "Extra Credit" is not just some B-movie starring Misty Lockheart, as IMDb recently informed me. It's a powerful tool, which should be used more often or at least as frequently as partial credit.
So, to all those professors reading this now: First, put down the newspaper-there are a bunch of kids in front of you waiting to be lectured. Second, bring on the bonus marks; expand the extra credit! We don't just want it-we need it.
Until that time, I guess I'll just pray to the gods of curved scores.
David Distenfeld apologizes to Gollum. I'm sorry I compared you to an engineering student.
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