Week 1 — Skills Check · Ear Before Eye

Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 1 of 15 (Week 1) · two sessions per week
Objectives tested: SLO 3 (identify by ear, without notation) · SLO 4 (judge reproductions and the pulse by ear)
Points: 8 (8 × 1) · Group: Skills checks (lowest 2 of 13 dropped) · In class, session 2, live stimulus, closed to AI. Answers go in through the Canvas quiz tool on your own device; every stimulus is performed live in the room.

The import-ready item file is rendered by the build system from _build/banks/lu-01.json; that bank also holds this unit's six pool items, which test the same skills with different stimuli and never appear on the weekly check. This page describes the check — the stimuli themselves exist only as session 2's live sound.

What it is

Eight questions, all ears, about fourteen minutes at the end of session 2's studio. There is nothing to read except the questions themselves and nothing to write except a click per item — no notation anywhere, by design. Professor Hemsworth performs every stimulus live, from a fixed script, the same way for everyone: announced by number ("Stimulus 1"), played twice, with a pause for answering after the final hearing. You'll have practiced every one of these moves in the studio the same morning.

Blueprint

The table below maps the item families to what your ear does and the outcome each serves.

Wrong-answer options come from the real ways ears slip — the error classes from this week's tutorial. If you did the studio and the daily loop, this check is confirmation, not a hurdle.

Ground rules

Closed to AI, closed to notes, closed to neighbors — it's your ear being certified, and it's ready. Phones face-down except for answering. Nothing is written or answered during a hearing; listen first, answer after. The check is group-administered: everyone answers the same live hearings at the same moment, so it runs identically whether the room holds four or forty.

Absent for session 2?

The primary make-up is a live administration in office hours — same script, same hearings, performed for you by Professor Hemsworth. Email her to schedule it within the week.

Self-administered variant (only where scheduling truly cannot work): the check has a parallel set of stimuli held by Professor Hemsworth for exactly this case. Recruit a musician who can play short patterns accurately from a card — a bandmate, a choir member, a roommate who plays. Your partner contacts Professor Hemsworth directly and receives the performance cards (they never pass through your hands); your partner performs each stimulus per its script — announced by number, two hearings, pause, answer — while you take the parallel items through the same Canvas tool; your partner signs the attestation line on the card set confirming the stimuli were performed as scripted and unseen by you. Process and honesty are the graded substance here; the ear it certifies is still yours. If no partner is available, arrange an office-hours make-up hearing instead — the late-work policy's standing path.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = classic assessment, delivered via the Canvas quiz tool
title            = "Unit 1 Skills Check — Ear Before Eye"
assignment_group = "Skills checks"
points_possible  = 8
allowed_attempts = 1
access           = opens in session 2; live administration only
published        = true