Photo © Krishnan Gopakumar via stock.xchng
Remember the word problems that you used to solve back in your grade-school math classes? I thought that simple word problems like those would serve as good exercise to help students learn, use, and retain their Biblical Hebrew numbers, so I created two sets of four word problems each. I delivered the first set online via Pepperdine’s “learning management system,” casting them as multiple-choice questions. I delivered the second set on paper so that students would need to compose their answers, and of course I expected the students to answer in Biblical Hebrew, not using Arabic numerals. If you wish, you can download the second quiz and its answer key. Three of the four questions on this quiz feature actual biblical situations, and incorporate biblical quotations either word-for-word or with minimal alteration. This quiz focuses students’ attention on larger numbers (from twenty up into the hundreds); it achieves attention to both genders of single-digit numbers primarily by including numbers that go into the hundreds. Question ג׳ involves nouns that I actually expected my students not to know (specifically, כֹּר סֹלֶת and כֹּר קָמַח), much like a grade-school word problem might ask a student to calculate how many blargs Jane has if she starts with two blargs and gets two more blargs from Tom. I intended question ד׳ as much for entertainment value in a late-semester quiz as much as for anything else; take a look and see whether I succeeded.
As usual, if you use this quiz to teach or learn Biblical Hebrew, please leave a note to that effect in the comments. Also, if you find that I’ve made any errors in the quiz, please let me know so that I can correct them. Finally, I’d receive any additional questions with great interest; perhaps some of us Hebrew teachers should put together a question bank for this sort of thing.
שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם
Great idea, and nicely done. I spotted a few errors, coincidentally one per exercise.
1. ויהו should be והיו
2. ויכלו should be וילכו
3. וּמִאָה should be וּמֵאָה
4. קריתי should be נקריתי
Thank you for the proofreading help, Aaron! One small thing, just to make sure we’re on the same page: for question 1, I think the correct correction should be וַיְּהוּ to וַיִּהְיוּ. Did you accidentally leave out a י in your correction for question 1, or do you think the וַיִּקְטֹל form is inappropriate here for some reason? At any rate, I’ve uploaded a corrected version.
No, you’re right, it should be ויהיו. For some reason it flipped in my mind somewhere between looking at your sheet and typing in the comment.
Also, just happened to notice in 2. שמנֶה should be שמנָה.
Fixed that one, too. (And I originally typed that comment as, “Fixed that one, two.” I need a better editor [than myself].)
That’s wonderful (especially the last). I will plan to use them in 2012-13, and will see about adding to the “kitty.” A repository is a good idea. I’ve begun using GitHub as a repository for syllabi, and as long as the Hebrew is Unicode it should “stay fresh” in the plain text that GitHub requires; but the learning curve might be a bit steep for some. And of course, a question bank can be hosted anywhere.
Still, plain text has its virtues for file-sharing, whatever repository is used: no proprietary fonts or “formatting gremlins” messing everything up. And with GitHub, it would be easy in principle to “fork off” another’s materials into modified projects, ideally with attribution. Here is a link to a recent Prof Hacker discussion on it, and to my recent word on syllabi-sharing.