midterm woes

My advanced listening/discussion students recoiled in fear when I went over the type of exam I'm going to be giving them this coming Thursday (it'll be listening + vocabulary + discussion, each section subdivided into two subsections). A few of them said the exam sounded difficult; a few felt they wouldn't be able to speak at the advanced level required. Personally, I think they're all going to do fine, and they really don't have any reason to worry. While it was a little off-putting to hear whining of the "We want an easier test!" sort, I'm not planning on changing the exam's structure. And since everyone's got an "A" in the class as things stand, the exam will separate the men from the boys, so to speak. One thing I might change, however, is the number of questions: in reviewing the test today (we used a dummy test of my construction), I realized that the test might be overlong. Some of my kids can't afford to stay overtime, on exam day, because they've actually got evening classes (we normally end at 6:15PM). I can't keep those kids behind, or they'll be late to their next class, and since this is midterm week for the whole campus, I could potentially make them late for a midterm. Can't have that.

So otherwise, the test is a go. I'll be curious to see how my students do.

ADDENDUM: By contrast, my intermediate kids, today, had a ball reviewing midterm material with each other. I had them interact via my round-robin method, and it went great. Much talk and laughter, and no complaints or whining.


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