But those efforts won't work, administrators say, unless first-year students begin to take the requirement more seriously.

"There need to be increased efforts to try to urge on students the importance of the requirement," says Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57.

A review of the Core Curriculum--issued last May at its 10-year anniversary--found a main problem with the QRR to be its "extracurricular" status. Because there is no required coursework unless a student is unable to pass the two exams, undergraduates tend to "focus their attention on passing the tests rather than learning the material," the report concluded.

"The requirement is not significant enough to gain the respect of the students," Jewett says.

To attack this problem, Mackay-Smith says, proctors are being told to find out from their first-year students exactly when and how they plan to fulfill the QRR. "Advisors will approach the QRR the same as they approach language requirements...not just say, `Oh yes, and there's a QRR--you better get it taken care of.'"

First-year students will also be given an incentive to take the computer exam early by making it easier to get a testing date near the beginning of the year, Mackay-Smith says.

Last year, more than half of all first-year students put off taking the computer exam until the second semester, leaving them fewer opportunities to retake the exam if they failed, says Core Director Susan W. Lewis.

Fundamental Reform?

But in addition to the steps taken to ensure the success of the new first-year class, structural changes in the QRR are being considered by the faculty panel that monitors the requirement. Reforms are needed, professors say, because even students who do take the exams seriously might not be learning enough about quantitative reasoning.

"There is a sense among us that we need to do a better job in teaching people how to think using quantitative methods far beyond what the present requirement actually defines," McKay Professor of Computer Science Harry R. Lewis said in an interview after the 10-year Core report was released.

One year before that report, an evaluation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges said the QRR did not ensure that students have an adequate "understanding of quantitative and logical reasoning," the very topic that the QRR is designed to address.

This fall, the faculty group will consider whether to include the QRR as a required course category of the Core, according to Hollis Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy Andrew M. Gleason, who heads the QRR committee.

Finding professors and teaching fellows for the courses could be difficult, Gleason said last spring, and a lack of faculty could prevent such a proposal ever being carried out. But should the plan be implemented, the quantitative reasoning area of the Core would offer a number of courses in quantitative methods as they apply to various academic disciplines, Gleason said.

But for now, the QRR staff has been doing its best to accommodate the 400 members of the Class of 1992--this year's sophomores--who did not pass both the computer and the data tests.

QRR staff members will be holding office hours and be available to answer questions regarding the tests. Sophomores will have one more opportunity to pass the data test and five more chances to pass the computer test this month. If the sophomores do not fulfill the requirement, they will be required to take an introductory quantitative reasoning class.