Sunday, May 26, 2013

It all depends on how you look at it

I have never enjoyed True/False questions on tests. My problem is that I sit and analyze the questions way too much. People who aren't so analytical do so much better on these tests because they look at the question on the surface and get it right. Instead,I pick the question apart and find cases where it might not be true and end up getting the gist of it wrong and therefore I lose a point on the quiz. Just give me a darn essay exam, will you? I figure if I write enough, eventually I'll hit the answer somewhere.

My final exam in German class was another case of over-analyzing true/false statements and I ended up being that person. It was the oral portion of the exam and our instructor gave us statements in German and we had to answer if they were true or false. The information in the statements really didn't matter that much; they were more of place holders to be used to see if we could understand oral German.

One of the statements (in German) was "Many people in Germany speak English." Oh goodness. I sat and debated that one with myself for quite some time, circled one answer, crossed it out, recircled it, and then made an annotation. Yes, I even rolled my eyes at that one, too. Feel free to do so yourself.

The problem was that I'm not sure what one would define as "speaking English." I also didn't have any stats on how many people speak it here and what one would consider "many people." A LOT of Germans here say they don't speak English, and then they'll have a full conversation with you. I think this stems from the definitions here of what Germans consider to be knowing English and also people are humble about it.

I wonder if I got the answer right, and if my notes referencing my thoughts on it were helpful. Probably not.

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