Week 15 — The Final Aural Assessment · Cumulative: The Movable Frame

Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 15 of 15 (Week 15) · two sessions per week
Objectives tested: SLO 1 (sing at sight) · SLO 2 (notate what you hear) · SLO 3 (identify by ear) · SLO 4 (reproduce at tempo) · SLO 5 (diagnose and recover, live)
Points: 72, in two gradebook rows — performance 60 (rubric, one hearing per student) + response part 12 (12 × 1) · Group: Unit 15 final · In class, both sessions of week 15, live stimulus, closed to AI. The final replaces this week's weekly skills check and weekly recording submission; there is no separate finals-week meeting — this course ends with this week.

The import-ready item file for the response part is assembled by the build system from the unit item banks, weighted toward the later units; _build/banks/lu-15.json holds this unit's eight final-eligible items and six pool items. This page describes the final — every stimulus exists only as this week's live sound.

What it is

Fifteen weeks, two parts, no new kinds of task. Every item below is a move you have drilled since the ear-before-eye week: sing what you see, write what you hear, name what sounds. The at-sight melody is not a trick — it obeys the same difficulty dials as every studio page this term. And the prepared half has been in your hands since Unit 13; the break protocol was the bridge that carried it here.

Part 1 — Response part (12 points, session 1, everyone together). Twelve heard questions spanning the whole course and leaning toward its second half: four-bar dictation in major and in minor, the three-dos moves from this week's studio, a Nashville number call, harmony calls from the triad and progression weeks (chord degrees and members, a progression, a cadence's expected bass, a tendency-tone resolution, an outer-voice bass line), and a counting match. Every stimulus is performed live by Professor Hemsworth from a fixed script — announced by number, fixed hearings, listen first, answer after — through the Canvas quiz tool on your own device, staff paper provided as scratch for the dictation items.

Part 2 — Performance (60 points, about three minutes, one at a time, both sessions). At the piano corner: sing the prepared melody you chose from the Unit 13 set (you name it, do is given), then read one fresh four-bar melody at sight — thirty silent seconds to audiate, do given, sing. Several different at-sight cards rotate through the room, and you'll sing your card from the do given at your turn — the tune on the page is the tune, wherever do lives.

The performance rubric (60 points)

Criterion weights: perception 50 · realization 35 · labeling 15

A student who sings the right pitches with the wrong syllables loses only the labeling points. A student who sings the right syllables on the wrong pitches fails the item.

Any octave that fits your voice earns full credit — sung throughout the course, true on the final. Timbre is never scored. And the standing path stands here too: if you cannot sing today — voice gone, any reason at all — play it instead, on any instrument; the ear being certified is yours either way.

The rotation, in numbers

Hearings run across both sessions of week 15 — at a full section of 36, roughly fourteen in session 1 and twenty-two in session 2, about two and a half minutes each, on a posted order, with the next singer taking their thirty audiation seconds on the on-deck chair while the current singer finishes — that overlap is what makes the pace honest. Anyone still unheard when the clock caps a session is heard in office hours before grades close, scheduled that same day, never skipped. In a small section, everyone is heard in session 1, and session 2 becomes celebration and polish. You have been heard solo on the rotation all term; this is a few minutes of the same thing, with the term's points attached. While the line runs, the room works the silent prep sheet — the silence is part of what you give each singer.

Ground rules

Closed to AI, closed to notes, closed to neighbors — both parts, both sessions. Phones face-down except for answering. Nothing is written during any hearing; dictation items open for writing only after the first hearing, exactly as drilled all term. The response part is group-administered — everyone answers the same live hearings at the same moment — so it runs identically at four students or forty.

Absent during final week?

Message Professor Hemsworth the same day. A live sung assessment cannot be turned in late — the path is a make-up hearing in office hours, scheduled promptly: response part from the parallel stimulus set, performance identical, same scripts, same hearings. The performance is always heard live by Professor Hemsworth; a final hearing is scheduled, never skipped.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = classic assessment + rubric assignment (two gradebook rows)
row_1            = "Unit 15 Final — Response part" · points_possible = 12 ·
                   delivered via the Canvas quiz tool · allowed_attempts = 1 ·
                   opens in session 1; live administration only
row_2            = "Unit 15 Final — Performance" · points_possible = 60 ·
                   graded on the rubric above, entered by the instructor;
                   hearings run both sessions on the posted rotation
assignment_group = "Unit 15 final"
published        = true