I just found some photos I took while I was in Pittsburgh this past June. While in the city, I visited the world famous Carnegie Library to read up on Chomsky, in hopes of better understanding the TOEFL writing and speaking rubrics.
Sadly, I left the library as perplexed as when I arrived. It turns out that Chomsky is very difficult. Who knew?
I kid. But really: if a test maker creates a scoring rubric and refers test takers to it when they seek guidance on the test, the rubric should contain language that is easily grasped. Telling test takers that their responses should include “a variety of syntactic structures” doesn’t really help them.
Note the presence of Dippy the Dinosaur in the background of the first photo. Study alcoves in the library stacks offer a nice view of the natural history wing of the Carnegie Museum. Local children write letters to the dinosaurs and tape them to the windows.
