Finals…. Month?

So, as the title of this post might suggest, my recent break in posting is due to the occurrence of finals. My exam period here in Germany has been quite a bit longer here in Germany than any that I have had at Valpo and are definitely of a bit of different format. So, here is a quick look into my experience with German exams.

 

I had a total of 6 courses this semester, each with a slightly different type of examination. The first type was the Klausur. This is a type of written exam, and in my opinion the most comparable to any of the exams that I have had in the U.S. It consists of extended response questions about various topics having to do with the course. This particular one consisted of a shorter and longer section, each with a variety of choices of question to choose from. I have to admit that this was probably mid-difficulty mostly because I chose to write in German (the language of the material in the course), which made the 90-minute time limit seem much shorter than usual. And overall, I think that I liked this format well enough.

The second type of exam that I had was a multiple choice exam. This sounds like it would be the easiest, but in Germany instead of giving multiple choice exams with one correct answer, there are multiple correct answers, and only if you answer with all of the correct answers do you get the points for each answer. I was not exactly expecting this going into the exam, which made it seem much more difficult than it probably was.

The third type of exam is an oral exam. Oral exams are, in my opinion, the heart of the German education system. I had a few when I was in Gymnasium and this semester I also had a 30-minute exam for my theology class. This was by far the most difficult exam because it consisted of the professor quizzing me for 30 minutes straight with no notes whatsoever. I also spent the most amount of time preparing for this exam, but overall I think it went okay.

Another type of exam isn’t really an exam at all, it is called a Hausarbeit, and is a type of research paper. I currently am finishing one for my anthropology class. Instead of having to turn it in for the  end of the semester, you can write it over the semester break as well in order to have more time to research and rework the paper. The one that I am currently working on is about 15 pages and most range from 10-20 pages.

The final type of exam was the portfolio that I completed for my class on intercultural communication, which was both my favorite class and my favorite type of exam. It was something that I was able to work on throughout the entire semester and I really enjoyed being able to see the fruits of my labor for this course. I thought that it was a really great format, because it had such open parameters and is something that I can continually work on as I continue to learn about intercultural communications.

It was definitely a learning experience to work on so many different types of projects at once, but in the end, I am glad that I got to have a taste of a different academic experience.

Bis bald!