nativity test
Jan. 22nd, 2005 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormsewerOh yeah, I gave my high school kids another test recently. On the nativity lesson I gave. And they crashed and burned. It was pathetic. I feel bad. But, in their defense (and mine, since I'm the one who subjected them to it), we didn't know when I gave the lesson that they were going to be tested on it. I had just gotten back from Southeast Asia, and the teacher was like, "Hey! They have to take a test on Friday! Write a 35 point test on your nativity lesson!" Had we known at the time that there was going to be a test on it, the kids might have paid more attention and I might have wink-wink-nudge-nudged a few things a little more. Anyway.
The average was 50.8%, with a high of 74.3% (the runner-up came in at 60%) and a low of 34.2%. The median was 48.6% and the mode was 45.7%.
The test consisted of three parts- a song listening section (I played "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode; they had the lyrics on the page, scrambled, and had to put them in order), a matching section (for vocabulary), and a multiple choice section on the contents of the story.
The funny thing is, most kids either did really well on listening and matching and then totally bombed the multiple choice section, or did really well on the multiple choice and totally bombed the listening and matching. The high score had middling performance on all three sections. There was only one girl who got the listening 100% correct (I was up for letting them listen to the song once more, but the teacher cut it off), but she then proceeded to miss 4 of 5 multiple choice questions. The girl who got 108% last time, who is one of my favorites, got 45.7%. Sigh. Anyway, below are the multiple choice questions, along with the percent of students who got them right. It seems to me that anyone in Christendom, be they Christian or no, could answer these questions without a second thought, but we are not in Kansas anymore, obviously.
1. What city was Jesus born in? (3 points)
a. Jerusalem
b. Bethlehem
c. Israel
d. Medina
(50% got this right. To their credit, I don't think anyone guessed Medina.)
2. What were the names of Jesus’s mother and (step) father (in English)? (3 points)
a. Mary and Joseph
b. Maria and Joseph
c. Mary and John
d. Maria and John
(33% got this right. Admittedly this was something of a trick question, since in Japanese they call her Maria, but during the course of the lesson I corrected them multiple times, saying "in English, it's not Maria. It's Mary." So I wanted to test to see if that got through. Apparently not. Also during the course of the lesson I just called Joseph the father since I didn't want to get into a discussion of the Virgin Birth and its implications, because... ya know. That stuff can get a little... weird.)
3. What does B.C. stand for? (3 points)
a. Birth of Christ
b. Birth and Cross
c. Before the Cross
d. Before Christ
(25% got this right, the same as would likely get it right if they all just guessed. I swear we talked about this. I swear.)
4. Wise menはどこから来ましたか。[Where did the wise men come from?](3 points)
a. 北 [the north]
b. 南 [the south]
c. 東 [the east]
d. 西 [the west]
(50% got it right.)
5. What led the wise men to the baby Jesus? (2 points)
a. a map
b. a star
c. an angel
d. a bird
[75% got it right.]
I also asked a three point extra credit question, in Japanese. It was "What does A.D. stand for? What language is it? What does it mean?" No one got any extra credit. Admittedly this is kind of a tough question that most Americans probably don't know the answer to, but I wrote all of this on the board at the end of the lesson and told them to write it down, too. So there's no reason that someone shouldn't have gotten part of it. Sigh... I love 'em to death, but Japan's best and brightest they are not.
The average was 50.8%, with a high of 74.3% (the runner-up came in at 60%) and a low of 34.2%. The median was 48.6% and the mode was 45.7%.
The test consisted of three parts- a song listening section (I played "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode; they had the lyrics on the page, scrambled, and had to put them in order), a matching section (for vocabulary), and a multiple choice section on the contents of the story.
The funny thing is, most kids either did really well on listening and matching and then totally bombed the multiple choice section, or did really well on the multiple choice and totally bombed the listening and matching. The high score had middling performance on all three sections. There was only one girl who got the listening 100% correct (I was up for letting them listen to the song once more, but the teacher cut it off), but she then proceeded to miss 4 of 5 multiple choice questions. The girl who got 108% last time, who is one of my favorites, got 45.7%. Sigh. Anyway, below are the multiple choice questions, along with the percent of students who got them right. It seems to me that anyone in Christendom, be they Christian or no, could answer these questions without a second thought, but we are not in Kansas anymore, obviously.
1. What city was Jesus born in? (3 points)
a. Jerusalem
b. Bethlehem
c. Israel
d. Medina
(50% got this right. To their credit, I don't think anyone guessed Medina.)
2. What were the names of Jesus’s mother and (step) father (in English)? (3 points)
a. Mary and Joseph
b. Maria and Joseph
c. Mary and John
d. Maria and John
(33% got this right. Admittedly this was something of a trick question, since in Japanese they call her Maria, but during the course of the lesson I corrected them multiple times, saying "in English, it's not Maria. It's Mary." So I wanted to test to see if that got through. Apparently not. Also during the course of the lesson I just called Joseph the father since I didn't want to get into a discussion of the Virgin Birth and its implications, because... ya know. That stuff can get a little... weird.)
3. What does B.C. stand for? (3 points)
a. Birth of Christ
b. Birth and Cross
c. Before the Cross
d. Before Christ
(25% got this right, the same as would likely get it right if they all just guessed. I swear we talked about this. I swear.)
4. Wise menはどこから来ましたか。[Where did the wise men come from?](3 points)
a. 北 [the north]
b. 南 [the south]
c. 東 [the east]
d. 西 [the west]
(50% got it right.)
5. What led the wise men to the baby Jesus? (2 points)
a. a map
b. a star
c. an angel
d. a bird
[75% got it right.]
I also asked a three point extra credit question, in Japanese. It was "What does A.D. stand for? What language is it? What does it mean?" No one got any extra credit. Admittedly this is kind of a tough question that most Americans probably don't know the answer to, but I wrote all of this on the board at the end of the lesson and told them to write it down, too. So there's no reason that someone shouldn't have gotten part of it. Sigh... I love 'em to death, but Japan's best and brightest they are not.
