Week 2 — Skills Check · Pulse in the Body
Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 2 of 15 (Week 2) · two sessions per week
Objectives tested: SLO 2 (dictation — the rhythmic strand begins) · SLO 3 (identify meter by ear) · SLO 4 (judge a performance against the page)
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-02.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, about fifteen minutes at the end of session 2's studio. Scratch paper is allowed and encouraged: the two dictation items run on the full studio ritual — three hearings, tap-count-write — and you choose the answer that matches what you wrote. Two items print a short counting string in the question itself; that string is the "page," and your ear judges whether the live performance follows it. Professor Hemsworth performs every stimulus from a fixed script, announced by number, identically for everyone. Every move here was drilled in the studio the same morning.
Blueprint
The table below maps the item families to what your ear does and the outcome each serves.
| Items | Family | What your ear does | Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Rhythmic dictation | Two bars, three ritual hearings; write it, then pick the matching transcription | SLO 2 |
| 2 | Meter by ear | A pattern plays with natural accents; call it duple, triple, or quadruple — the words that arrived this week | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Counting match | Hear a two-bar pattern; choose the counting string a counting voice would speak with it | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Error spotting | The question prints the page's counting; the performance differs in one place — locate it | SLO 4 |
Wrong-answer options come from the real ways ears slip this week: the dot heard as two attacks, the tie re-attacked, a rest swallowed, the split landing on the wrong beat. If you ran the drill table daily, this check is confirmation, not a hurdle.
Ground rules
Closed to AI, closed to notes, closed to neighbors. Phones face-down except for answering. Nothing is written or answered during a hearing — the ritual's discipline is part of what's being certified. 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 holds a parallel set of stimuli for exactly this case. Recruit a musician who can clap short patterns accurately from a card — a bandmate, a drummer, 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, the scripted hearings at the scripted tempo — while you take the parallel items through the same Canvas tool; your partner signs the attestation line confirming the stimuli were performed as scripted and unseen by you. Process and honesty are the graded substance; 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 2 Skills Check — Pulse in the Body"
assignment_group = "Skills checks"
points_possible = 8
allowed_attempts = 1
access = opens in session 2; live administration only
published = true
F-skills-check-week-02-qti.xml) ships inside the course's .imscc package — it lands in the Canvas gradebook on import.~ Professor Hemsworth's edition · Kenosis College · built with thecoursemaker.com