Essay Test

Internet image of Blue Books.

  In most of the classes I took in high school and college, one phrase created a sense of dread, "Be ready for an essay test."

 

 Multiple-choice and true or false exams are generally more comfortable because one of the choices is usually the answer.  That was better than writing longhand for 30, 60, or 90 minutes to reveal your thoughts and conclusion in answering the question.

 

 No one asked who invented the essay?  The answer, if you must know, is a French man, Michel de Montaigne, who was born on this day (February 28) and became as a well-known philosopher who shared his opinion on a variety of topics.  Ultimately his essays filled 107 chapters over three books.

There were times I liked essay tests because I thought the teacher would give me a break if they heard my reasoning on how a conclusion was reached.  It's the ultimate way to 'show one's work.'  On some level, these blogs could have been title "Essays," instead.

The essay and the practice of writing may be going the way of cursive writing.  You can tell a computer armed with 'Artificial Intelligence' to write about a subject and it will quickly survey the web to compile a finished product that might pass as the work of a human.

That seems like a bad idea.  Artificial intelligence doesn't have emotional intelligence and can't fully capture who you are on paper, only you a human can do that.

While essays may not be as useful as they once were, today might be a good opportunity to use Montaigne's favorite means of communication to write something that means a lot to you.  Come on, you can do it, it's an essay test where you choose the subject, the question and answer.