Excelsior College - INL 102

Hey gang,

For those of you who took this course, let me ask...is the final all that tough? I've read through all the material...so many links with so much stuff. I've done well on the quizzes (80-100% for each quiz various times). Now I'm staring down that final.

I really don't want to print out all those links and pages (expensive and wasteful)...and I have a hunch that the final carries the same or nearly the same questions as were asked in the quizzes.

So, how bad was it? Horror stories, anyone?

Thanks.

P.S.: No, I am not trying to cheat...(this is a common study prep style question), just trying to understand what I am up against.

 

Philoscholar,
No worries, I finished the entire course within a few hours. If you are scoring 80-100 on the quizzes go for it. The final is more of the same.

-John

 

Well, within the period of about 10 minutes prior to this post response of mine, I did all five quizzes again and attained 100% on each of them - total of 50 questions...that's quick. Of course, its the same questions all the time (jumbled) so how lame can it be to recognize the answers!

Don't know if this prepares me well for the final...but I might just go for it very soon.

- S.

 

I actually wrote Excelsior an email describing my extreme disapointment with the this particular course. I felt for $200+ I should have gained at least a small amount of knowledge from it. Oh well, such is the life of a student.

Good luck with the course

-John

 

So, this morning I started this course. I did lessons 1&2 and they were boring basic information so I just went ahead and took all 5 quizes without looking at the info.

Understand, I'm not a freshman -- I have over 200 semester hours and I've used WebCT before so that may well have made a big difference in my performance.

So, after taking all 5 quizes and scoring 100% -- and realizing that this is a pass/fail course so grade really doesn't matter as long as I get a "pass" -- I went ahead with the final.

It was as easy as the quizes and more than a few questions were exact. The end result was a 94% on the final -- no idea what I missed and it really doesn't matter.

My opinion of the course:
What a terible waste of my time and money! The material presented is VERY basic. High School level at best -- maybe into freshman college at a particularly low level college.

Search engine use is a pretty basic skill. Boolean operands is not that complicated a subject. Every 14 year old with a computer knows this stuff. If you don't know this much computer skill -- you never managed to find and enroll in Excelsior. (IMHO)

MLA/APA citations is a little more complicated but this course did not teach me how to cite -- simply when. I learned that in HS too. The academic honesty material is good to know but is best presented in a tutorial with a reminder in the syllabus of each class.

"How to use a library - 101" was an abismal waste. It seems to me that anyone who has taken a year of college courses already has this info.

More than a few test and quiz questions had wrong answers (though you could predict what the writer intended) or were badly written. Review by an educational assessment professional is in order.

Bottom line -- maybe a great course for first year freshmen with no academic prep. maybe! An absolute waste for those who have basic skills already.

There needs to be a waiver for those with some academic preparation (say 60 classroom hours or more in transfer) and a method to test out entirely.

If the course actually delved into the finer points of each of these topics (and tested those points) then it might be valuable to students. As it is - it's very basic and should be offered as a free tutorial to every student.

There is nothing here that requires ongoing interaction with the faculty -- for that reason, this is nothing more than a packaged training session and not a "course".

Just my opinions. If you did well on the quizes -- go ahead with the exam.

 

Do you have any tip on studying, did you use any other resource, books, web site etc..
I will start studying today and I am hoping to be done sometime this week.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,

 

I'm assuming this is some type of basic literacy course?

Now that I have some online teaching experience, I have to say that I'm shocked at how poorly prepared a lot of students are for higher education. While that course might be a piece of cake for most people, it probably does benefit quite a few new students.

You have to plan for the lowest common denominator.