I got a B on a Management Science test, because one one of the main problems worth 16% of the test grade I completely bombed. Fortunately, the teacher lets us redo the problems for partial credit. The problem was, I looked at the problem again, and I did it correctly (I thought). I followed the correct procedures, entered the number correctly, but got the wrong answer.
Then it hit me. The problem gave us the amount of time it took to make each product in minutes, but gave us the amount of labor we had in HOURS. I forgot to convert the labor to minutes when I did my calculations. GRRR
It really pisses me off to miss something for such a stupid reason.
Posted by TheGrimace (Member # 9178) on :
while annoying, unit conversions are so critically important... we've had multi-million-dollar probes miss mars because of them
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
oh ya...I'm not blaming the teacher or test...its my own fault, and I deserved to get marked off. Its just one of those things where you want to smack yourself upside the head. Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
My engineering profs were brutal about unit conversions (and rightfully so, IMO). I always had a friend or two who was really pissed off that they didn't notice that one of the temps was in F and one was in C, or something like that.
I personally loved that amount of attention to detail.
Posted by TheGrimace (Member # 9178) on :
oh, and lupus don't get me wrong, I feel the same way all the time too. It's frustrating at the time when you're getting graded on things that you're not actually learning in that class (i.e. spelling in a science paper) but so valid when you look back on things... and you never cease to feel dumb when you make those kinds of mistakes (which we all continue to do, forever)
Posted by Baron Samedi (Member # 9175) on :
The worst example I ever saw of this happened to a friend of mine. We were in pharmacy school, taking a test in Therapeutics. In this class, the school had a rule that dictated that if you failed a single test, you automatically fail the class and have to repeat it, regardless of your grade on all the other tests. This particular test covered three units, which were taught by three different teachers. Each teacher was responsible for the section of the test covering their unit.
The teacher that taught the section on anemia wrote only one question for his section, with about seven parts. It was a case study, detailing a specific patient's presentation and initial test results.
The first part of the question was, what type of anemia does this patient have. Then there were about six more parts dealing with how to treat the patient, what to monitor, how to manage the therapy short and long term, and so forth.
My friend misread part of the case, and answered the question about the type of anemia wrong. Then he went on to answer every other part of the question right, based upon an initial misdiagnosis.
The teacher didn't give him a single point of partial credit for the entire question, which was worth a third of the test grade. Fortunately, he aced both other sections, because if he'd missed one more question he would have failed the test entirely, and would have had to take the entire class over again. As it was, he got a D on that test based upon one silly little mistake on one part of one question.
So, it could be worse.
Posted by stacey (Member # 3661) on :
Oh I HATE those questions where if you miss one part of the question you miss the rest of the parts because they are all based on the answer to the first part of the question!!!
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
Hey, don't feel bad. NASA has collided with an entire planet because of a conversion error.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
On my music theory exam, I missed an entire question because I accidentally read a roman numeral IV as a roman numeral VI.
Apparently I'm a bit dyslexic. Sucks that I had to miss that question, though, because I got the answer perfectly right!
Well, I would have, if the question had been V^7/VI, instead of V^7/IV...
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
Senior Composition / English I, a dual-credit course offered during my senior year of high school:
ANY mispelled word means automatic C, your grade is now 70%. Other grammar errors deducted points from there.
More than (two, I think?) linking verbs per page is a 10% deduction. Per incident.
One girl had more than 3 mispelled words, plus a few too many of those weak verbs. If memory serves, 7 on one page. I couldn't help thinking, "Criminey...get a spell checker!"
Oh, and "didn't you READ what you WROTE?"
Ah, memories. Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
quote:Originally posted by TheGrimace: (i.e. spelling in a science paper)
You can ask some of my students from last year about this one. vial is not spelled vile. -1. H2O is not the same as H(sub 2)O -1.
And Tstorm, what is the point of the no linking verbs rule?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Woohoo! Not only another (former) science teacher who takes off for spelling, but one who takes off more than I! Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: Senior Composition / English I, a dual-credit course offered during my senior year of high school:
ANY mispelled word means automatic C, your grade is now 70%. Other grammar errors deducted points from there.
More than (two, I think?) linking verbs per page is a 10% deduction. Per incident.
One girl had more than 3 mispelled words, plus a few too many of those weak verbs. If memory serves, 7 on one page. I couldn't help thinking, "Criminey...get a spell checker!"
Oh, and "didn't you READ what you WROTE?"
Ah, memories.
I'm assuming this was for a paper, rather than a test, so that spell check was allowed. I'm personally awful at spelling on my own, spell check is a beautiful invention. Except of course, when you misspell a word which ends up being the correct spelling of another word, so that spell check won't catch it. In those cases, I might not catch it at all, depending on whether I mistyped or really didn't know how to spell the other work.
Hukt on foniks wurked for me.
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Woohoo! Not only another (former) science teacher who takes off for spelling, but one who takes off more than I!
Oh I'm still teaching but just until the end of this academic year. I'm teaching recitations this time instead of labs, so I get to miss out on most of the grading.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
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