The answer to this question is certainly not in the short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. To me the title suggested that a girl would truly find a good man after many previous attempts. Once I read the story I realized my prediction was wrong.
In fact the story was about a terrible man, the Misfit, who with the aid of a few others kills a grandmother and her family. Pleading for her life the grandmother says, "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell." The grandmother may have just been complementing the Misfit because he held her life in his hands, but I found that the statement had a lot of truth in it.
Most people look on a person's outward appearance to judge how good or bad the person is. The problem is someone can't just look and tell whether the person would act a certain way and no one really knows the heart of man except the Lord. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 16:7, "for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."
Who wouldn't like a built, good looking man? Sure good looks and hygiene are usually on the top of any woman's list of what a good man should look like, but we should consider his heart. If we don't we might end up like the grandmother--dead or broken hearted.
To find a good man one must define what a good man is. Of course each individual has their own personal opinion of the characteristics of a good man. To me a good man is loving, honest, caring, considerate, truthful, and loves the Lord. As I look over my list I think Wow this is going to be hard! I do not know many men out there who has these qualities and those that are are already taken.
The best way to resolve the anticipation is to wait. Waiting on the right guy with a good heart is better than jumping into a relationship with a guy with a decietful heart.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Do Tests Really Test Our Knowledge?
As we reviewed the short story "Luck" by Mark Twain the topic of tests came up. Are tests a reliable measurement of a person's knowledge of a subject? I thought of this question for awhile and realized that tests are probably not the best measurement of one's knowledge.
Throughout my school years I have probably taken 500 tests (at least that is how many tests it seems I have taken). I have done well on most of the tests I have taken but have always wondered what I could have made if I wouldn't have crammed the night before. In the story the narrator helps Scoresby cram for a military test on history. Scoresby luckily does very well and advances. Sometimes I get lucky and do well on a test I thought I was going to fail. Most of the time cramming does not make us smarter; it just helps on
occasion. Cramming is like exercising. Exercising once a week does not benefit your body as it would if you exercised everyday, unless you had Scoresby luck of course.
In class we also talked about those who do really well in class and on homework, but do terrible on tests. Doing poorly on a test doesn't mean the student isn't knowledgable about a certain subject. Test anxiety, little sleep and being sick are a few factors that could defer a students real measurement of knowledge. Math is my favorite subject (sorry Mrs. Watson) and I understand it very well.
We were doing trig and it happens to be my favorite math topic. I did very well on the homework assignments and pop quizzes. When I got the test I forgot how to do angular speed and bearings. Unfortunately a third of the test were on these two topics. Afterwards I felt very dumb because I knew how to do the problems I just couldn't concentrate on the test. My grade will now reflect only the questions I got right, but not my knowledge of the subject. If only there was an effective way to test a person's knowledge that factors in possible room for error.
Throughout my school years I have probably taken 500 tests (at least that is how many tests it seems I have taken). I have done well on most of the tests I have taken but have always wondered what I could have made if I wouldn't have crammed the night before. In the story the narrator helps Scoresby cram for a military test on history. Scoresby luckily does very well and advances. Sometimes I get lucky and do well on a test I thought I was going to fail. Most of the time cramming does not make us smarter; it just helps on
occasion. Cramming is like exercising. Exercising once a week does not benefit your body as it would if you exercised everyday, unless you had Scoresby luck of course.
In class we also talked about those who do really well in class and on homework, but do terrible on tests. Doing poorly on a test doesn't mean the student isn't knowledgable about a certain subject. Test anxiety, little sleep and being sick are a few factors that could defer a students real measurement of knowledge. Math is my favorite subject (sorry Mrs. Watson) and I understand it very well.
We were doing trig and it happens to be my favorite math topic. I did very well on the homework assignments and pop quizzes. When I got the test I forgot how to do angular speed and bearings. Unfortunately a third of the test were on these two topics. Afterwards I felt very dumb because I knew how to do the problems I just couldn't concentrate on the test. My grade will now reflect only the questions I got right, but not my knowledge of the subject. If only there was an effective way to test a person's knowledge that factors in possible room for error.
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