SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE THREE
English Exam Saturday Words of Warning
Students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences wishing to take the next English proficiency examination must register at the College office, 229 Frank Strong hall. Dec.8,9,10. Only juniors and seniors may register.
"This proficiency examination is an attempt to cope with the frequent complaint from some source or another that college graduates cannot write clear, decent prose," reports J. B. Virtue, chairman of the committee on proficiency examinations.
The examination, established four years ago, is a requirement for graduation of all students in the College. Students who fail to pass it by the beginning of their senior year incur penalties. Since the examinations are given four times during the regular session and once during the summer session, every student has several chances to meet the requirement. Failing it at the start of their senior year, they lose at least one semester's academic credit—more if they fail again. They must complete 24 hours of class work after passing.
Under the terms of the faculty rule, the examination is strictly a test of skill, not of knowledge. It puts before the examinee a number of topics, on three of which he writes expository themes of some two or three hundred words each in three hours. These topics are numerous and varied, so that every student may find three upon which he is able to compose a satisfactory expository paper in the allotted time.
The examination papers are graded "pass" or "fail" by a committee of five, of whom three are teachers of English. All are unaware of the names of the students whose papers they are judging, and, for the most part, of each other's judgments. The concurrence of a majority of the five in the verdict of a failure is required.
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The committee regards writing that merits a low passing mark in freshman composition as unsatisfactory in this upperclass examination. It fails papers for such faults as solecisms in grammar, idioms, and diction, for misleading punctuation, for confused sentence structure, and for incoherence and lack of unity in the paragraph.
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Professor Virtue says, "Approximately 22 per cent of our examinees fail on their first attempt. Some do not try again, but either transfer to other divisions of the University where they do not need to pass the examination to qualify for degrees, or withdraw entirely from the University. Of those who try again, about half pass on the second attempt. More fall by the wayside after the second or third failure. But all who continue to try, and who use the facilities that are made available for further training in composition, pass in the end. One girl last summer passed on her eighth attempt."
Students who fail the examination are invited to confer with a member of the committee about their papers. Most students, on having their weaknesses pointed
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out, resolve to undertake some kind of training to overcome them.
"Individuals who cannot communicate—cannot get upon a common ground of meaning and value—simply will not be able to maintain a community. Our institutions, postulated on the existence of free, responsible citizens cooperating in a common cause, will eventually decay. But if we do our work well, if we help our students to realize their full potentialities as free, intelligent, responsible members of a community—then our country will not succumb to any fake wave of the future," Professor Virtue pointed out.
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"Thunder Rock" opens Tuesday. Get your tickets in Green hall.
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Summerfields Hear Kettner, Eberhardt
A Big Selection Now in the light Elks
George Kettner told fellow Summerfield scholars about the activities of grave-robbers and their importance to the early study of anatomy at the colloquium at the Colonial tea room last night, and Fred Eberhardt discussed the problems of America after the war.
YES IT'S THE RIGHT PLACE
Kettner's paper was titled "The Resurrection Men." Eberhardt's paper called "America, 1941," presented the problems which America must face, and the Scholars proposed solutions in a thirty-minute discussion of the talk.
The next colloquium will be January 9.
THE BLUE MILL
to meet and eat anytime.
Across from the Granada Theatre
Department of Speeeh & Drama Presents
THUNDER ROCK
A play by Robert Ardrey
Dec. 9,10,11 FRASER THEATRE
Reserve Seats at ticket office-Green Hall
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