what exactly are marks...

To lament on a well versed song, rewritten, of course, "MARKS! What is it good for absolutely nothing, sing it again!".


I was checking my marks today, through the one and only WebCT and it happened that my 2nd Essay had finally been marked by my professor. To tell you the truth, I was afraid of that class and more importantly, as a student, I was afraid of my marks from that class. Considering, the last time I actually went to that class I had to embarrassingly ask someone "am I in the right class? Is this religion and popular culture?"; long story short, the Prof lacked charisma, the text was more than boring and if the prof analyzes that Madonna music video (Like a Virgin) one more time, I was going to ... well to say the least, it didn't matter cause I hadn't seen the prof or the material since September. As you can clearly see, my concern was justified by my clear lack of interest. I took the course hoping that it would be an interesting segway into my interest in enlightenment and sadly enough I have neither had interest nor have been enlightened in the process. I should have taken econometrics instead at least that's a challenge.

I got an 85%, class average was 67% and my friends, fellow fourth year students, got 67% and 80% respectively. Here is where the conflict begins. On hearing I got a 85% they start freaking out. How was that possible? I never go to class, I never read the book, I barely know what the prof looks like let alone my TAs name (which is Ryan by the way, I just learned) while they attend class, do all the readings, participate in class discussion. This then made me think what are these profs marking on? What do marks really mean? Just because I get an A and you get a C does that mean I'm smarter than you, perhaps I know more?

I remember reading an article in high school about the American SATs to get into University in the States. Essentially, the sum of the article said that the SATs do not tell you how smart someone is. It shows you who has retained the most knowledge within the specified academic realm. So taking that into perspective... what do marks tell you?

We can obviously eliminate that marks DO NOT tell you how often someone goes to class, or how well someone understands the material. I personally didn't read the book, I didn't go to class, and I had no idea what was happening in that essay. Do marks tell you how smart someone is? I don't think so, essay writing is subjective and testing often privileges students with a particular style of learning (MC, short answer, T/F). Ok, so it doesn't tell you the efficiency of someone's study habits, doesn't tell you how smart someone is. So what are marks good for? Perhaps it is a measure of how well read someone is? I read a lot, I read a lot of different books on different subjects in different genres. If I could be a recluse for a year, all I would need is a camera, a massive massive massive stack of books, a pen and journal and some really good tunes (not on itunes7.. cause that program skips). Perhaps those that do better in school are those that are well read? Perhaps, the more one reads the more one questions the world, the more one essentially learns about their surroundings. Like the character in The Alchemist, we can either learn by reading or by looking. Or perhaps by doing both?

Alice