Blue book essays and the Martha Complex: on time management, test-taking, and letting go of perfectionism
Yesterday, after my 25B (Women in American Society) class, two of my students asked to meet with me briefly. Both young women were very concerned that they each had done poorly on the exam for the same reason, namely that they had spent too much time answering the first question leaving themselves little time for the second. I gave them my standard spiel about the importance of time management, and reminded them that no matter how poorly they had done on the midterm, a strong final exam could go a long way towards lifting their course grade.
But we also talked briefly about perfectionism. For years, I've given the same classic exams: "blue book" essays, with students required to complete two prompts within a given period of time. Each essay is worth 50 points. And I've noted that my female students, particularly the very bright ones, often have a great deal of trouble managing their time effectively. Part of the trick of doing well on these exams is learning to let go of the perfectionist desire to write one flawless essay. Spending the full class period crafting one beautiful, elegant paper will earn the student a poor grade. One "50" (a perfect score) and one "0" is an F grade; two "35s" will earn a C.
There's a method to this madness, and its rooted in more than a desire to inflict upon my students the same testing techniques that were inflicted on me. Learning how to write well under time pressure is an important, even vital academic skill. From a pedagogical standpoint, we can debate whether or not that's as useful a skill as some academics imagine it to be. But there's little doubt that my students, as they transfer on to four-year institutions, will continue to be exposed to tests that evaluate their competence at writing effectively under time pressure. And as long as these tests are given at places like UCLA, I have an obligation to prepare my students for those exams.
But there's another purpose too, one that ties in to feminist work. I've written a lot about the "Martha Complex": the relentless pressure that so many young women feel to be"perfect" in every area of their lives. This perfectionism shows up in disordered eating of course, but it also shows up in the tendency of many of the best and brightest to overload themselves with work, volunteer activities, and family obligations. Classic symptoms of the Martha Complex include near-constant anxiety and exhaustion. Not surprisingly, those with the Martha Complex feel a huge pressure to do well on exams. So knowing this, why do I offer the particular sort of tests that I do?
I know that it is impossible to write two complete, perfect answers to two questions in ninety minutes. By asking students to do two questions rather than one, I'm challenging them to think in terms of"good enough" rather than in terms of"the best." Doing well on these sorts of exams requires that a student stop writing their first answer after forty-five minutes, and then move on to the second. For those with the Martha Complex, it is often especially agonizing to move on from an essay response that they know isn't yet perfect."If I only had more time", the Marthas say,"I could have said so much more!" I always tell them that that's the point: the lesson is learning to prioritize, to make difficult decisions, and to not let the best become the enemy of the good enough. As with my exams, so too with life; it is axiomatic that the sooner we accept the reality of our own imperfection, the more content we will be with ourselves and the more genuinely useful we can be to the world at large.
Invariably, the majority of students who finish my exams early are male. The ones who are writing up to the last possible second, the sort from whose perspiring hands I almost have to rip their blue books, are nearly always female. This doesn't mean that my best students are always women, though the majority of my top students generally are. What it does mean is that regardless of class or ethnic background, young women in contemporary society are much more likely to be concerned with"getting it right" than their male peers. And while I want my students to work very hard and do very well, I want them to learn more than just good test-taking skills. I want them to learn to use time to their advantage, and to learn how to walk away from a task when the allotted time is up, regardless of whether or not that task has been done perfectly. And I want to show them strategies for success that don't involve the relentless, heartbreaking, invariably unsuccessful pursuit of perfection.
And as I told the two women in my class yesterday, a great many students start to learn this lesson between the midterm and the final. And if they learn nothing else, I'm happy.