Are You Smarter Than A Second Year? (Round One)

Last semester, I highlighted the events and discussions of my third year class. This semester, I would like to share with you what we have been talking about in my second year class. If you are a second year student at EGT, you will take one semester of church history with the town pastor and one semester of Old Testament with yours truly.

I really enjoy teaching both second years and Old Testament. For some of them, my class will be the first time they have delved into the drama of the OT. For others, my class will be a review of the stories – but with an additional challenge, because my class is taught in English. My second years have only had a year and a half of academic English, and for this reason, it is challenging for both me and the kids to communicate content. A typical Old Testament lecture begins with a broad question that each of the students will write a short response to and then we will discuss the question as a class. Past questions include: Do you believe in love at first sight? Think of a food that reminds you of a story, and share both the food and the story with the class. What’s the worst trouble you have ever been in, and what were the consequences? Describe one household rule – spoken or unspoken. If you could eat one food for the next forty years of your life, what would you eat? These questions serve a couple of purposes. First, they get the students thinking and talking in English. This helps them transition from their Slovak language classes – and it allows them some additional English practice. (I always tell the students if you want to be a good English speaker, then you should speak English. If you want to be a good English writer, then you should write in English) Second, the questions are somehow related to the Old Testament passage that we will discuss in class. I often use the question to introduce content. It’s also fun to watch the students make the connections between our discussion at the beginning of the class and the story we are studying.

A typical Old Testament lecture involves bizarre drawings on the board, lots of acting, and some Bible reading. For the most part, I treat an OT lecture as story-telling time – with the added bonus of class discussion and real life applications.

The students come to class having read and answered questions from the Bible passage we will be studying and discussing. My students are expected to take notes in class so that they can create an Old Testament storybook with one page describing each lesson we have together. The storybooks are checked with each test that we have. In order to get a 100% on this project, each student should turn in his or her book on time. Each page should have the details of the lesson written out in good, second year English and it should include a picture of an event in the life of Israel. I have drilled into students’ heads that Ms. Large does not grade messy work. After the first part of the storybooks were collected with the first tests, some of my students found out that I mean that.

Here are some of students’ books. Get ready to be impressed with their work. I know I am.



















Now that you have this background question, I invite you to take on the challenge: see if you can answer some of the questions from my second year’s first Old Testament test, and ask yourself, “Am I smarter than a Second Year?”

Section One – Matching

1.Ishmael
2.Isaac
3.Esau
4.Rebekah
5.Leah
6.Rachel
7.Jacob
8.Moses
9.Egypt
10.Midian
11.Joseph
12.Zipporah
13.Aaron
14.Zilpah
15.Bilhah
16.Abraham

a. the place where the Israelites lived as slaves
b. Abraham and Sarah’s son
c. Jacob’s first wife
d. the man with whom God made a covenant
e. Esau’s brother; the man who had 12 sons
f. the brother of Moses
g. Leah’s maid, who gave Jacob 2 sons
h. Jacob’s second wife
i. the place to which Moses ran after he killed the Egyptian
j. the place where the Israelites lived as slaves
k. Isaac’s oldest son
l. Rachel’s maid who gave Jacob 2 sons
m. the man who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt
n. Jacob’s favorite son; the oldest son of his wife Rachel
o. Moses’ wife
p. Abraham and Hagar’s son

Section Two – Fill in the Blanks

1.God’s name is _______________. It means “I AM.”
2.Jacob wrestled with God and was given this name: ________________.
3.We believe the Exodus happened around the year ________________ BC.
4.The Hebrew word “Seder” means ____________________.
5.In God’s covenant with Abraham, God promised him __________________, _____________, and _______________.
6.Jacob tried to steal his brother’s _________________.
7.Jacob worked for a total of _________________ years before he could marry Rachel.
8.________________ was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham.

Section Three – True or False

____ Jacob had 13 children.
____ Sarah laughed when God told her she would have a son.
____ Moses’ mother put him in a basket and sent him down the Nile River.
Pharoah’s daughter found him, and he was raised an Egyptian prince.
____ God shared with Moses his name from the burning bush on Mt. Sinai.

Section Four – Short Answer

1.What is the Torah? What does the word “torah” mean in Hebrew?
2.Why is Abraham known as “Father Abraham?”
3.What instructions did God give to Moses for Passover?
4.Why were the Israelites in slavery in Egypt?
5.What is the Seder meal? (Who celebrates is? What does this celebration remind them of?)

Because cheating is rampant in the second year class on test days, I usually make anywhere from 2-4 different tests. The questions above are in no way a complete test - instead, they are samples from each of the four tests I gave a couple of weeks ago. I hope you enjoyed this brief trip into the Old Testament : ) Stay tuned for more "Are You Smarter Than A Second Year" as the semester progresses.