First Test Results

The most popular terms were monsoons, Columbian Exchange, Columbus and Martin Luther. No surprises there. Only one person did Timur the Lane and only one person did the Dalai Lama, in spite of the Tibetan Monks visit.

The high score in the class was 44 out of a possible 48 — pretty good for the first test. The median score was a B-, which is actually quite good. Here’s how the grade scale worked out:

Grade minimum points distribution
A+ 44
A 41 6%
A- 39.5
B+ 36
B 32 55%
B- 28.5
C+ 25
C 21 33%
C- 17.5
D+ 14
D 10 6%
D- 6.5
F 0

Over the weekend I’ll put some of the 4-out-of-4 answers up here for reference.

When looking at your papers, you can ignore the little diagonal I put in the upper-left and lower-right corners of pages: that’s a note to me that there’s nothing before or after (respectively) that page which isn’t graded (just keeps me from having to flip more pages than necessary). If I underlined or circled something in one of your answers, though, it almost certainly means something you got wrong. If I put an “approximately” sign in the margin (and I do this on essays, too) — it looks like this: ≈ — that means something which is almost right, or nearly wrong; questionable, in other words.

Here are some sample answers. As always, these earned 4 out of 4, though that doesn’t mean perfection: it just means that the historical issues are covered, clear, and the significance really is significant.

Monsoons: Monsoons are seasonal storms that affect southeast Asia, especially where trade was extremely important. When the monsoons came and went, they had specific wind patterns that allowed ships to come in to port and leave with goods. Without the change in winds, like the fixed winds of the Atlantic, trade would have been horribly difficult. The rains brought in by the storms also allowed for certain raw goods to be produced in that specific area. The winds were vital to the trade enterprise across the world since seafaring trade began.

Martin Luther: Luther was a Catholic priest who disagreed with the idea of indulgences in the early 16th century. He osted his 95 These on his church door stating his grievances to the Church. He wanted the Bible printed widely and in several language so people could read the Bible themselves. This cuased the church to be upset with him and he caused a schism to form in religion forever. From his own branch, Lutheran, to Protestants, Episcopalians and others including Calvinism, he made people and the Catholic church reexamine their beliefs and branch out. He did not want to separate from the church at first, but that is how it ended up.

Council of Trent: This 15-year long series of meetings was the Catholic Church’s response to the schism of the church. It concluded 3 things:
1) There are fundamental problems within the church — indulgences and the selling of offices
2) The church is still needed as God’s representative on earth
3)focus more on education; opened seminaries and founded the Jesuit order

Slave Labor: Slaves were brought to the Americas by boat, in the hundreds of thousands and eventually millions. They were to replace the dying native populace as workers for European settlers. This slave treatment has contributed to the racial discrimination that still exists in this country today.

Smallpox was very dramatic to the Native Americans. The Europeans brought over this disease and it caused a pandemic through the Americas. Killing of thousands of the population, it also affects the European slave numbers because smallpox was killing off all of their workers.

Treasure fleets: Treasure fleets were Spanish ships that left ports in the Americas either filled with gold and silver and headed back to Spain or filled with silver headed for China to trade for silk. These ships made Spain one of the wealthiest places in the world but they were also vulnerable to attack from other countries.

One comment to First Test Results

  1. […] can find some exemplars of good work from previous semesters here and […]

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