The high score was 28; actually, the highest scores were 29 and 27.5, but 28 is easier for the math. The median was right on the B/B+ border, and a substantial majority of people who took the test improved their overall test grade for the semester. The top three terms were from Chapter 29 — Cold War, genocide and Holocaust — as was the bottom term, European Union. The most popular term from chapter 30 was renewable energy, which tied chapter 29’s Great Depression for fourth place.

Though a lot of people did choose the Holocaust and genocide, I was not terribly happy with the overall results: there was almost nobody who connected either term to the history of nationalism or racial thinking which we talked about fairly extensively; and the textbook seems to have confused some people on the distinction between genocide — the attempt to eliminate a particular people, of which the Holocaust is one example (and often the only one people cited) — and other atrocities.

The high score before extra credit was 30; actually, there was about a three or four-way tie at 30. Einstein and Hitler tied for the most popular terms; big bang theory and atomic bombs tied for second. Pragmatism and primitivism tied for last, completely unanswered by anyone. It seemed like there was a cultural divide at work: some people went heavy on political/military terms, while some went mostly for cultural/scientific terms.