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A Short-Lived Test, Even With Coaching

The first question on the screening test for an online class I signed up for was not a hard one, but my most recent exposure to math had been in high school decades before, and I didn’t remember how to solve even easy equations.

I called my 22-year-old daughter and told her I had forgotten the order of operations. “Pemdas, Mom, remember?” she said. “Parentheses, exponents, multiplication. ...” And then I did remember.

I recognized the next question as a quadratic equation, but all I could summon up was that for some reason, you’re supposed to convert it into two little things in parentheses. My daughter told me how to do that, too.

I hung up, and went on. No problem.

But there was a problem: First test, first two questions — and I had just cheated.

To explore the world of online college classes, I had signed up for Business Statistics and English Composition 2 at Straighterline, for $177 for a month. The courses, based on McGraw-Hill textbooks, come with 10 free hours of online tutoring. I did not go so far as to buy the textbook or, for that matter, do any of the problem sets. I just wanted to see what it felt like to sit there, at the computer in my kitchen, and try to plow through it.

The statistics class started with easy material: averages, means, medians. Each topic was presented on the screen, and taught at the same time by a blandly pleasant male voice. Each topic also had textbook assignments. Then there were quizzes that generally allowed two hours to answer 10 multiple-choice questions. That would have been long enough to go back and learn the whole chapter. Or to call my daughter and get the answers. (The F.A.Q. section did warn against getting the answers, midtest, from the online tutors. )

I skimmed along reasonably well for a few chapters. I was interested to learn about the existence of the Pearson coefficient of skewness. I appreciated the hokey puns, and the bland voice saying that while it may sound like Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness,” skewness is in fact a useful mathematical concept. I had no interest, though, in learning to compute it — or even how to do it on Excel. So while I could pass vocabulary quizzes — I understood “skewness” — I was left to guess when questions required computation.

And the dreariness was getting to me. I could see that it was a reasonable way to learn, but I could also see that it took real motivation to stick with it.

The English class went a little better; I am a writer, after all. The text was “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. There were quizzes on vocabulary like metaphor, foreshadowing, prose and rising action. The first writing assignment was 500 to 1,250 words analyzing a political cartoon. It was the Arab Spring, and I chose a cartoon showing a camel labeled “Mubarak” being pulled toward an area labeled “Freedom.”

I wrote everything I had to say, but it was only 341 words. So I padded my way to 501 words and turned it in. Straighterline requires that you turn in a first draft of each composition for comments, then revise and resubmit for a grade.

The next morning, I got my draft back. The Straighterline grader liked my “vivid descriptions. Way to go!” But she did not like my starting sentences with “and,” saying that the second sentence sounded “tacked on.” Instead, she said, just join the two sentences.

“Let me show you: Original: I went to the store. And I was rushed because I forgot the milk.

Revised: I went to the store, and I was rushed because I forgot the milk.”

Fair enough. But the sentence from my piece that she used to make this point was: “And if the man is sweating over his task, the camel, too, is worked up, with a baleful expression on his face, teeth clenched tight, all four feet dug deeply into the sand, and sweat pouring from his head, as well.”

Joining so many words to the previous sentence seemed ridiculous, so I just deleted the “and,” resubmitted and got full marks.

The course also covered interviewing, teaching a mnemonic, Danvrs. But when it came time for the multiple-choice quiz, I couldn’t remember if that D was for “deadline” or “due diligence”? Was the N “Nodding helpfully” or “Narrative Script” and the R, “Research”” or “Risk-taking” ?

Meanwhile, back in statistics, I was floundering. I called my math-proficient brother and asked him about permutation problems, hoping he might replace the screen and the voice. But my math-proficient brother is also a psychiatrist. “Hmmm,” he said. “It sounds like you don’t like sitting there and working though it.”

No, I didn’t.

“It sounds like you want someone to teach it to you.”

Yes, I really, really did.

It seemed like the right time for online tutoring. I signed in, and wrote my permutation question on the whiteboard.

“Do you think that’s a math question?” the tutor wrote.

“Yes, I think it’s a statistics question,” I wrote.

As it turned out, Straighterline had forgotten to register me for math tutoring, and this tutor dealt only with English.

But the month was nearly over and I didn’t need the credit — so like millions of other online students, I dropped out.

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