Chris Blattman

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A fairly difficult exam

My Political Economy of African Development exam.

I wanted to ask hard questions, so they get them three weeks in advance. The students are strong, and up to it.

They can be thankful, at least, that I am not taking the Tyler Cowen approach.

25 Responses

  1. These are very similar questions to those asked in Oxford exams for donkey years – interesting. Faculty I’ve spoken to who moved from the US to Oxford or Cambridge have always said their students would be completely lost if faced with these sort of questions (though they would fare better on technical drills). Very interested to hear how they do.

  2. After having worked for two years in the Malawi Ministry of Finance, I’d like to think I could ace questions 2 and 3.

  3. I think it’s interesting that students are encouraged to use subheadings and may even use bullet points. I did my undergrad and postgrad at same UK university, and we had quite a lot of North Americans on my Masters course (in International Health). I would never think of using subheadings in anything under 4000 words long and think writing a single essay continuous prose is a skill – using plenty of sign-posting and logical progression, but no subheadings. Some of the North Americans couldn’t quite get their head around that. I think it’s a UK thing, or maybe a really-old-UK-uni thing.

  4. They have to write them longhand??? Why not just require a feather and quill? Maybe they could carve their answers on stone tablets.

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