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At OSU, every student in certain majors had to take an English
proficiency exam. If the score was too low, you had to take self-paced
remedial sessions. My score was so high, that they asked me to be one of
the student tutors in the writing lab and help with the remedial
sessions. I had to relearn all the parts of speech, etc. as I was
helping the students, as I couldn't remember much beyond basic nouns,
verbs, etc. I'm not sure if I could diagram a sentence then or now, but
I can recognize and write sentences correctly and know where to look if
I'm not sure whether something is correct.

Reminds me of the old "when will I ever use algebra". In fact, I use
algebra regularly in comparison shopping, altering recipes, and so on.
But it never looks like the stuff in the textbooks did.

I guess my point is that the ability to USE a skill in daily life matters
far more than the ability to work problems on a piece of paper.

Mary Ellen
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<Hi and Lois>

Erin M

>At OSU, every student in certain majors had to take an English
>proficiency exam. If the score was too low, you had to take self-paced
>remedial sessions. My score was so high, that they asked me to be one of
>the student tutors in the writing lab and help with the remedial
>sessions. I had to relearn all the parts of speech, etc. as I was
>helping the students, as I couldn't remember much beyond basic nouns,
>verbs, etc. I'm not sure if I could diagram a sentence then or now, but
>I can recognize and write sentences correctly and know where to look if
>I'm not sure whether something is correct.
And I can do that. But I have no use for diagramming sentences now, and
that's something I know I can learn quickly when I -do- need it. And if
college is the only reason I don't really see the big deal.
>
>Reminds me of the old "when will I ever use algebra". In fact, I use
>algebra regularly in comparison shopping, altering recipes, and so on.
>But it never looks like the stuff in the textbooks did.
I -know- I'll need algebra. I already do. :-)
>I guess my point is that the ability to USE a skill in daily life matters
>far more than the ability to work problems on a piece of paper.
>
>Mary Ellen


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