Comprehensive test is one of the tests that I must face to pass post graduate program. The test covers all the materials given during the lecturing time in three semesters. The materials tested are categorized into four major category i.e. 1) English as Foreign Language (relates to teaching methodology, curriculum design and language testing), 2) statistics (covers statistics in conducting quantitative research in education area), 3) Qualitative research and 4) Linguistics (consists of grammar, language in use and systemic functional grammar).
The test is carried out in a day. Each subject is given two hours to finish. The first is Statistics test. This is given as the first test as everyone will agree that statistics relates to counting, calculating, formulas, and other scary rejecting null hypothesis – using t table, degree of freedom and many other terms that cause us as students feel stress. There two part in this test. The first part is related to our understanding on quantitative research. We must get familiar with the terms relates to research such as ‘validity, internal/external validity, variable, control variable, scale and many more.
The second part of statistics test relates to our understanding and how to apply the statistical formula based on the problem given. We must fully understand basic calculation of finding mean, mode, median, range, standard deviation and also z score. Further, the problem is getting tougher, we must be able to formulate null hypothesis and test the null hypothesis at the level of significance of 1% or 5%.
Everyone tried their best. To my surprised, one of my friend complained “how can I finish all these six problems, doing the four had made me lost all my precious time!!” he sighed. I said, ‘didn’t you read? We may pick TWO out of FOUR problems given, and we must answer the first the two questions, so we did only four, not six.” He almost fell subconsciously; he regretted for he missed reading the instruction and did not able to answer the first two questions.
In stressful condition like this, even the brightest person made mistake. I myself worked very-very hard to answer the second part. I chose number three and four. Number three, it asked the basic calculation on statistics, whereas number four demanded one way annova. I did not know for sure whether my answers were right, I just answered as good as I could.
The second subject is Linguistics. It is not always easy to talk about grammar especially when you are asked to uninstall what you had known with new belief about grammar. Take an example, people around the globe believe that there at least 16 basic form of tenses. The major form is present tense, past tense, future tense and progressive tense. However, in my post graduate, to my surprise, it is said that there are only two tense: present and past period. Imagining the difficulties of grammar part, I feel so weak; I forget what I had learned on grammar in my semester 1. The problem doubles, semester two, ‘language in use’ was also another difficult subject. Some new terms relates to this subject such as deixis, gricerian theory, maxim, politeness, speech act, presupposition, implicature and many other difficult terms. The problem becomes perfect when semester three, we learned about systemic functional grammar (SFG) that see language as text started from clause not from the word. SFG also offers troubles to us, its new terms again burden us. The terms such as mood, transitivity, tenor, theme, rheme, tenor, field, genre.
The questions are around those materials that causes the students think hard to find the answer. Analyzing clause from its form and function and then from its Mood, transitivity and theme/rheme causes severe headache. Meanwhile asking us cohesive device used in the text also squeezes our brain. And, describing implicature from a conversation is not an easy task to do. I heard one of my friends explained the transitivity using agent-carrier, meanwhile I understood it as actor-process material- goal. My fried said,’ this cannot be ‘goal’, as nothing change by ‘process: material”. I bet you do not understand what I wrote here. To understand what I wrote you must read Systemic functional grammar from Halliday or Eggins. All the terms such as agent-actor- behaver- proces: material, verbal and many others are coined in their book. I could not argue with my friend, even though I disagree with him as ‘carrier’ usually appears in passive sentence, but I was also in doubt whether my understanding is right.
The third test is EFL methodology. The questions are five, but it needed more than four pages of folio paper to answer them. I did not understand how to answer question that related to eclective teaching. The second ambiguous question was that ‘suggest an evaluation program”, I did know how to respond to it. Did it mean summative test to evaluate students after a certain program finished, or curriculum cycles started from goal and ended with evaluation as a cycle to evaluate a program given in an institutional level. I remember my reading on Language testing book, it said that ‘the instruction/question must be clear’. I said to myself this is the unclear question that causes me to write without any confidence.
The last test is Qualitative Research. The questions were 30!! It divided into 3 parts. Each part had 10 questions, and of course it dried my head. Some terms I did not know. I did not blame myself, I just reflect, if my lecturer was the person who made these questions I would not find any difficulty to answer these 30 questions. I was given a lecturer who had high believe on his students, he declared that he did not need to explain anything as students can learn by themselves. The effect of this, we never study, we never meet our lecturer, and we did nothing for a semester. I understand qualitative research based on my readings.
The test is a kind of unforgettable moment for me. The reason is because it causes everyone forget the time, forget to eat, forget anything, just thinking how to answer the problem given. I could feel my right hand very numb as too much writing is done. I never thought that I would have this kind of test. I thought mid and final test are enough. Maybe comprehensive test is a test that differentiate post and under graduate.
What can you do with this?
I went to school very late today. Two students had not followed Performance Test yet because one of them was sick (I heard possessed-!?) and almost collapsed of being exhausted joining a series of test ((cinematography), art, religion, and sport)). I felt a bit uneasy as they behaved as if they wanted to avoid the test. I asked them to state the time to have the test as soon as possible; they replied ‘we do not know’… what kind of answer it is! I asked similar questions three times and they kept saying they did not know when. Actually they are at the school at the very moment.
I sat on my desk when I found out that somebody had made my desk dirty with liquid sugar. Sticky and drove me crazy. Irresponsible people are everywhere. Then I found out another irresponsible people wrote on the announcement whiteboard asking for collecting data-paper as certified teacher. You know, I did the similar thing less than a month ago. My question is ‘WHERE THOSE DATA GO? This time the data made in triple bundles that consist of copied this and that. A teacher got mad and asked to no one “why the government asks for this data again, I had just given this. Did they lost the previous one?” I said nothing, no one tried to satisfy him.
A man passed by he said,’ this time the data will go to Secondary Directorate of Education, that’s why this data is not included salary-paper”. We thought the data given last year, and the year before, and before, and before…. had become enough source of data. A lady in pink said,’…. I get bored of collecting similar data, it seems to me like ‘the government burdens us with this and that just to make them pay our salary’.
Back to my business, the students who are doing the test look idea-dead. I asked them to put their mobile phone on the table so that they do not open google and find the answer for the test. They are asked to write on of these topics: School Uniform, Mobile Phone, Fuel Price Hike. The first student wrote like this:
School uniform High School Cianjur
Scholl uniform is something very penting which must use all student. Because it is salah satu syarat for so student in school and not only that school uniform also sebagai cerminan positive terhadap all people. This time in Cianjur many more model school uniform, example school uniform in high school 2 Cianjur which have aturan difficult antara ladies and boy students.
This time school uniform must memakai jilbab for ladies student and my opininion that very good because it can menutup aurat. But it also can make ladies student feel canggung terhadap aturan itu because many from they non Islamic. But for me it make happy because ot make we muslimah and looking beautiful. So for all high school in Cinajur must memakai jilbab for ladies student agar looking Islamic and beautiful.
The second wrote:
Handphone
Handphone is communication modern this time. Handphone after di berbagai kalangan from start menengnah ke bawah sampai kalangan atas, not only that hand phone also have function salah satunya for mempererat silaturahmi. Hand phone is alat modern make all people feel froud, because hand phone it. this time the children after memakai hand phone for looking ketinggalan zaman.
My opinion hand phone very penting this time, because can many people to success example business, etc, hand phone cant make people clever form year’s by year’s hand phone semakin maju and canggih for all people must have hand phone because it will easy we for communication. minimal hand phone not mahal.
The underlined word, phrase or sentence is in Bahasa Indonesia. Can you help me? What can and should I do with these texts?
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