Final Exams

The state Board of Education endorsed yesterday a plan to boost public high schools' academic standards by the year 1998 and to reinforce the changes with a series of new exams required for graduation.Members of the class of 2002 will not earn diplomas unless they pass about 10 universal "final exams" -- or prove by alternative means that they have mastered math, science, English and social studies, a school standards task force proposes.Tentative standards for Maryland's nearly 204,000 high school students, unveiled yesterday, will form the basic building blocks for the future exams.

Few situations are more stressful than law school final exams, and 'tis the season. But frazzled test-takers at the University of Baltimore School of Law will enjoy a stress-free zone full of soft fluffy dog love and puppy kisses tomorrow thanks to an enterprising student and Pets on Wheels . Seven therapy dogs and their human volunteers will visit the law school lobby from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, May 3, to de-stress students in the middle...

COLLEGE COURSES on the Internet. Final exams online. Every day, it seems, there's a new development, and the high-tech binge is no longer restricted to higher education. Laddie Levy, for example, is the first McDonogh School teacher to experiment with online examinations. Levy, an English teacher, posted an exam on the northwest Baltimore County independent school's e-mail system. Seventeen of 34 students volunteered to take the exam online. "My thinking was that these kids no longer use the keyboard to type.

The Howard County Public School System is the very last in the state to finish the school year, dragging it out until June 22. Yes, while Frederick, Montgomery, Carroll county children that my children know are laughing at us, my kids are taking final exams. Why? The short answer is that they didn't plan for any/enough "snow" days. That is nothing short of ridiculous! The school system that closes or delays school when there is so much as one snowflake didn't plan on having to close school?

Until today, Howard County students did not have to worry about upsetting summer vacations or missing any time around the swimming pool.But today marks the fourth day students have been out of school because of inclement weather -- one day more than school officials had scheduled.And although some students are happy about being off unexpectedly for an entire week, they'll have their comeuppance in June, when they will go to school longer to meet the state's requirement that schools be open for 180 days.

COLLEGE PARK -- A fire Tuesday night forced the evacuation of a University of Maryland dormitory just as students were in the middle of studying for final exams, but no one was injured. The fire started about 6:20 p.m. in a heating and air conditioning unit at La Plata Hall, campus police said. Six dormitory rooms suffered water damage but were deemed habitable when the building reopened at 11:20 p.m. The fire's cause is under investigation, but foul play has been ruled out, police said.

Baltimore County's school board last night gave parents a new weapon in the homework wars -- recommendations for how much and how often homework is assigned.First-graders should expect about 30 minutes of homework several nights a week; seventh-graders about 90 minutes of work on week nights and 10th-graders three hours.The homework guidelines are part of a package of policy changes on homework, grades, grading procedures and report cards, effective next year, that were approved by the board last night after considerable debate over one change -- how much final examinations should count in the final course grades.

For the third time in four months, the Anne Arundel school board will take up a plan today to overhaul the grading system used in 117 county schools. And this time, board members said, they're ready to approve it. The plan spells out how much homework teachers are to assign, how valedictorians are to be selected and how much weight to give final exams in high school. On that point, the plan calls for semester and final exams to count for 20 percent of a final course grade. Students and teachers had lobbied for the 20 percent weight after a school system committee initially proposed that exams count for 30 percent.

Looking back: The Terps took a 10-day break for final exams after beating Monmouth, 91-55, on Dec. 11. Looking ahead: Maryland faces William and Mary at home on Thursday, then opens its conference schedule at North Carolina State on Dec. 30. Of note: With a win over No. 22 Oklahoma tonight, Maryland will have beaten three ranked teams this season. The Terps did not beat their second ranked team last season until Feb. 17 at Wake Forest. Worth watching: Ryan Randle on the boards. The junior backup center who transferred from Allegany College is making the most of his 7.6 minutes a game by averaging three rebounds.

For the third time in four months, the Anne Arundel school board will take up today a plan to overhaul the grading system used in 117 county schools. And this time, board members said, they're ready to approve it. The plan spells out how much homework teachers are to assign, how valedictorians are to be selected and how much weight to give final exams in high school. On that point, the plan calls for semester and final exams to count for 20 percent of a final course grade. Students and teachers had lobbied for the 20 percent weight after a school system committee initially proposed that exams count for 30 percent.

Seniors in the forensics class at St. Paul's School scrapped the traditional blue books and delved into a real-life mystery for their final exam. Instead of an essay, they applied 21st-century tools and technology to their investigation of an unsolved 170-year-old double murder. "It's our own episode of 'Cold Case,'" said Will Stokes of Hunt Valley. "They get very lucky on TV. Our job was more tedious. " Working in teams of four in one of the Brooklandville school's co-ed classes, the students took two weeks to study the 1842 murder of Alexander and Rebecca Smith, analyze the evidence found at their Long Island farmhouse, which was the scene of the crime, and draw their conclusions based on what they discovered.

Many events have been affected by the snow forecast. Below are a select few: Ravens : Sunday's home game is moved from 1 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. Stadium parking opens at 11 a.m.; gates open at 2:45 p.m. City libraries: All Enoch Pratt Free Library branches are closed today. Zoo and aquarium: The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the National Aquarium in Baltimore are closed today. Crab Bowl: : Maryland Crab Bowl is postponed until 7 p.m. Monday at Towson University. Youth players are to arrive at 4:30; at 5 p.m., gates open and high school players should report.

Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality By Pauline W. Chen Chen charts her personal and professional rites of passage in dealing with mortality, from her first dissection of a human cadaver, through the first time she pronounces a patient dead, to having to officially take responsibility for the accidental death of a patient in her care. Focusing on the enormous moral and psychological pressures on doctors and on the need for greater empathy in hospital end-of-life care, Chen also reports on signs of change within the profession, stemming from both criticisms of training and institutions and from physicians' initiatives to bring a greater sense of shared humanity to their work.

Kyle Boller was back with the Ravens' starting offense again yesterday, taking snaps in preparation for Sunday's game against the Cleveland Browns. But is Boller the Ravens' quarterback of the future or simply the one of the moment? Ravens coach Brian Billick said Boller could finish the season as the starting quarterback, and he didn't definitively answer whether Steve McNair would ever play for the Ravens again. McNair, who is mired in the worst slump of his decorated 13-year career, is out at least two to three weeks with a partially dislocated left shoulder, meaning Boller will have a couple of games to stake his claim to the job. Billick seemed inclined to let Boller start the rest of the season if the former first-round pick is successful.

For weeks, Paul Rabil had done so much to light the way for the Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team, especially when it came time for the junior midfielder to finish off an opponent with the ball in his stick. But at this moment, after the Blue Jays had meandered through the first half and held a modest 5-3 halftime lead over an inferior and inspired Mount St. Mary's team, the Blue Jays' best player decided that leading merely by example would not do. So after coach Dave Pietramala voiced his dissatisfaction, Rabil stepped into the halftime huddle, spoke up in loud, angry terms and challenged Hopkins to stop dragging its feet and start acting like Hopkins.

Tricia Johnson knows how pricey it gets when four of your five children are in high school at the same time, preparing to take two or three Advanced Placement exams each, at $76 apiece. That was about eight years ago, and the Anne Arundel County school board president remembers that she couldn't afford to let her children take every AP test they were eligible for, so they chose the tests that could get them the most college credit. "It adds up and becomes a hardship," Johnson said. Now, she and her colleagues on the board are weighing a proposal that would offer financial aid to families struggling to pay for college preparatory exams.

Many events have been affected by the snow forecast. Below are a select few: Ravens : Sunday's home game is moved from 1 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. Stadium parking opens at 11 a.m.; gates open at 2:45 p.m. City libraries: All Enoch Pratt Free Library branches are closed today. Zoo and aquarium: The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the National Aquarium in Baltimore are closed today. Crab Bowl: : Maryland Crab Bowl is postponed until 7 p.m. Monday at Towson University. Youth players are to arrive at 4:30; at 5 p.m., gates open and high school players should report.

It takes more than a pencil and a blue book to take final exams this month at River Hill High School.Students at the new Columbia high school are being asked to build rockets, fight speeding tickets and diagnose psychological problems -- work that is counting for as much as half of their final exam grades."

The offseason is off to a pretty good start for the Orioles, for what that's worth. The Boston Red Sox apparently have lost boy wonder general manager Theo Epstein - an unmistakable blow to one of the Orioles' chief rivals. Former Orioles GM Pat Gillick - the best in the business, in my opinion - was looking for a job but didn't sign with the Red Sox or New York Yankees, instead taking on the task of turning the Philadelphia Phillies into a playoff team. (He will.) The Los Angeles Dodgers first fired their manager and then fired their general manager in the middle of his search for a new manager, proving that the Orioles, even after eight straight losing seasons, don't own the copyright on organizational dysfunction.