Know the words! Know all the words!

Last month I agonized over what to do about an exam that flattened more than half of the class, and I finally gave them a second chance to show their stuff (read it here). This worked well, but I was eager to see whether the class would come to the next exam more prepared or slack off, hoping for another second chance.

The second exam was a little shorter than the first but it was also not open-book, and the results were encouraging. I saw fewer blank spaces, more depth and breadth in responses, and more evidence of careful preparation. And the grades were better too, representing a reasonable spread rather than the stark split I saw last time.

However, one question tripped up a small but significant number of students, who all interpreted it the same (wrong) way. The question asked for three characteristics of local color writing, with examples from a particular author's works. Now we had referred to the characteristics of local color writing repeatedly in class and the students could easily find those characteristics listed on a presentation linked to Moodle, but a bunch of students listed not three characteristics but three characters. As a result, a question that should have been a no-brainer was marked wrong more than any other question on the exam.

Years ago a test question tripped up a bunch of students who interpreted enable as unable, which made the question (and their responses!) incoherent. Honestly, I wasn't trying to trick anyone; enable was the right word for the context, and it never occurred to me that students wouldn't recognize the word. Now here we are in the same situation: if I'd known that (some) students weren't familiar with characteristics, I would have explained the term in class. They never told me. I never knew.

Now I know. What do I do? I can't take the time in class to define every single word I use, and I refuse to speak entirely in monosyllables. One of the characteristics of my character is an unwillingness to insult my students' intelligence by defining terms they ought to already know.

But what do I do when they don't?