EXAMINATION SCRAPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 74

EXAMINATION SCRAPS.

Bt Coach.

Half a century ago the number of persons who "sat" for examinations was few, and the proportion of those in school attendance who dicl so was very small. To-day nearly everyone who b»s attended a primary or a secondary scnool has had a certain experience of examination work. With the spread, toe, of free education and the 'great increase of scholarships and of the emoluments to which examinations are a passport, the number of those who ccme up annually to be examined has enormously increased. The art of preparing pupils to pass examinations is one which many teachers and coaches have successfully studied, and which they utilise in the training of their pupils. On the other hand, examiners have to endeavour to draw out the real knowledge of their pupils, not that which has been merely stuffed into them. Just as armour plates and the projectiles meant to pierce them advance towards perfection pari passu, so examinations and the art of passing them ad\ance also, but not quite in the same beautiful progression. For the personal equation bulks very largely in the problem, and 6uch unknown quantities as the state of the examiner's temper and digestive arrangements cannot be successfully estimated. | In no group of subjects is the aim o.f j drawing out ' the real knowledge more important than in those which are termed " scientific." For a science subject to be of any value it must be scientifically taught. The importance of this is very fully shown in the teaching of elementary physiology, which is a favourite subject, both with teachers and pupils. It ranks as a science subject, but is usually "got up" out of a text-book with but little practical acquaintance with it. This is shown by the amusing answers given to practical questions. " How^ would you proceed to deal with the skull of a rabbit so as to expose and examine the various parts of the brain?" "I would bury it for a few weeks, so that the flesh could be easily removed." Of course, the confusion heie is between the brain and tha bones of the skull itself. Another would take the skin off, and then split it with an axe. The result of this "getting up" of the subject is that a great number of young people who elect to sit for it in their examination have only a superficial book knowledge of it, and they show this by ludicrous misspellings and miss-tatements jof fact. The question of spelling is a , curious one, and most teachers treat it as an isolated one. But is it not most probably only a matter of observation? The accurate speller sees in his mind's eye e\ery word he uses, and he knows by its look whether it is right or wrong. The person who cannot spell correctly has apparently a defective mental vision of the words used, and while the ear may correctly appreciate the sound of the words, the eye has failed to convey a correct picture of them to the mind. If this theory is correct, then the cure for defective spelling lies not so much in the mere committing to memory of so many words, but in the cultivation of the faculty of observation, with especial reference to the ail of visual memorising. The possibilities of misspelling are irrmense, and it is marvellous how clever and unintentionally funny some young people (and old ones, too, for that matter) can be in maltreating words, especially technical ones. The writer had the opportunity a short time ago of looking over a number of examination papers of candidates in elementary physiology, and it was marvellous how tangled up and knotted they got among the intricacies of unfamiliar terms. Here are a *rw ■examples : — Oxygen figured as oxigen, oxogen, oxagon, oxegyn, oxgen, oxyden, oxyen, etc. The os coccyx (an ugly 1 name, which proved too much for the I majority) was os coccidis, oscoxigis, i oscocygx, os coxycyx, oscogj-s, ox coriI gial, coxcyx, cocyxis, coccox, cocxx (the I last quite unpronouncable). Pharynx appears as pharanyx, pharnyx, phraynx, phyrnx, tharynx, etc. ; and gluten as gluetin and gluton. These, of course, are all more or less uncommon words and some of the errors represent merely slip 6 ; but one wonders at the ingenuity displayed in twisting others of them. The following are also suggestive : — ..brcnical tubes, the scull of a rabbit, impure venemous blood, a molar tooth is of a double' phang. starch is a feul food, the brain is convuted into cleft, syliva, silava, scement, ailmentary canal, sewtures of tho skull, the lyrnpathetic system, hydraulic acid, and so on ad infinitum. Examiners as a rule have no time, and less inclination, to note the misspellings or to record the misstatements which they meet with, but the unconscious humour of the latter is often excruciating. The following are a few of the plums culled at random :—: — "It is important to remember that one roasted potato contains as much nrurishment as two pounds of steak." Was the teacher a vegetarian? " A molar, like all othor teeth, has three parts — the crown, the body, and the twang; 6ome irolais ha^e thiee twangs." " Any matter allowed to remain on the teeth germinates acid." "It is when the tooth pulp is exposed that we get that extracting pain of toothache." These new views iegardine; the teeth ought to prove interesting to dentists and their victims. "We sometimes do a thing quite unconscientiously by means of reflex action." "Reflex action is the recoiling of the walls of a vien or arterary." " Men go up in baloons to see how far they can ascend, but when they get up about 600 miles their ears and nose start to bleed so much that thpy have to " despond so as to get in better health." ' " When a person is sleeping and eomenno ticklrs his or her foot, he or she kicks out, and when one a<-ks him or

her in the morning whether he or she kicked out or not, he or her says that he did not. Julius Caasar himself might get a lesson in pronouns from this lucid young physiologist. " When a sound is heard it goes into the ear, and is conveyed to the brain by the alimentary canal." "The brain is divided into five hemispheres." " A good pair of well-kept teeth is an ornament desired by all." "The organs present in the thorax are the heart, the lungs, and the asparagus." Absurd as many of these answers are, it is manifest that in nearly all the candidates know something of their subject, and have mixed up their information, or they have got hold of some idea or suggestion and have developed it on wrong lines. It is in school examinations, where the rank and file of the classes are being tested, that the most extraordinary statements are- made, but 6uch "howlers" seldom meet the public gaze. The teachers and pupils may laugh at the time, but the thing is too common to attract more than passing notice. We laugh readily at these errors, and can afford to do so without hurting anyone's susceptibilities. But which of us, if put through the same tests, would come out unscathed? Most people are able to keep their ignorance to themselves, but the depth of the average ignorance of physiology is unfathomable. Were it not so, where would the great army of quacks ana quasi-medical charlatans go to?