The perfect exam paper

I’ve gotten subtle variations of 6 and 9 from students:

6*: Describe two opposing (i.e. completely contradictory) positions, then explain why both positions are correct

9*: Openly admit that the obvious and overwhelming objections undermine one’s position, but then protest one’s convictions anyway (Perhaps that’s just what 9 says, but I wasn’t sure about the open admission part)

Ya know….

I’ve been to philosophy lectures by some respected philosophers and they unpack an incredibly complex argument only to say, “But this would lead us to such-and-such a conclusion, which intuitively seems wrong so that argument must not work.” That seems much like #4 and #6 except it came from a person with tenure.

I think you might be able to extract it from some of your commenters.

?

Well, #4 wasn’t exactly hilarious either. Maybe we should both take the weekend off…

Shouldn’t if be “profess your convictions”?

In assigning and grading papers on economics I’ve found that often times what students (particularly those with a humanities background)really want to do is to tell you the story of how they came to write this particular paper, rather than, you know, actually write this particular paper;

“It was a dark and stormy night when I ran this regression. Lightining struck as I looked at my t-statistics. Suddenly there was a knock on the door…”

There’s been a few cases where the student in question was actually a good enough writer to pull this off (in terms of both form and substance) but most of the time it’s just filler.

Sometimes, I hope I never finish this PhD.
The prospect of having to grade stacks of such things and being lucky to have a gig which ‘allows’ me to do so….. is not enticing.
I think I’ll just do postdocs till I’m 50.

“Do not write on both sides of the paper at once”

This reminds me of those joke tests, in the event that others haven’t read them:

2) Medicine: You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15 minutes

15) General Knowledge: Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

Extra Credit: Define the universe; give three examples

The first googled source I found: http://www.zuckhome.com/jokes/jokes_school.html
But I got more laughs from yours. Thanks.

You sure know how to make a guy not want to do his grading for the quarter…

While d) All of the Above are understanable frustrations felt by many professors, and even more likely, many TA graders, I feel like I gotta stick up for the students here.

So you asked an ambigous question. You got an ambigous answer.

You asked a half assed question with many potential correct answers and you expect your students to read your mind. You got a half assed response.

You assumed that the students would understand your brilliance and the only reason they cannot answer the question correctly is because they are intellectually unfit to read your brilliant mind. You got frustration.

Seriously, while there’s a many a dumb and a stupid student outhere there’s a plenty a lazy and outta touch professor there too. And ones with a sense of privilege and entitelment. This whole website is the lousiest bunch of whiners I’ve ever seen:
http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/
who’s main problem seems to be that work actually sweems to entail work. Like you know, preparing for classes, and thinking about the material from the point of view of a novice who’s unfamiliar.

And yes, this is worse at research schools than at liberal arts colleges. And yes, this is to a large extent a bunch of over educated but not-quite-genius (being charitable here) folks sneering at those who have not have had the good fortune to come from a similar economic/academic background as themselves and who, holy shit, are much younger and less experienced then them and feeling smug about it.

Also. Grad student TAs tend to be the worst about it. They’re like the security guards at the corner grocery store who think they’re real cops or secret service agents. Little bit of power corrupts little people a whole lot. Junior faculty can be bad too but there it depends more on the institution (does this school treat its students like shit? If yes, then you got no choice but to play along!) and personal insecurity.
Older, established people actually tend to be more understanding and have a better perspective on things, even in cases where they’re horrible lecturers and completely anti social.

You know, teachin’ ‘s actually a lot of fun.

I have a student this term who comes to class only sporadically, hasn’t turned in any of the three required papers due this far, and who failed the midterm by answering two of the three questions with answers of the “provide irrelevant historical background” sort. She recently e-mailed me to say that she was concerned about her midterm grade, and wondered if it was possible for her to pass the course.

Clearly this student’s troubles are due the ambiguous and half-assed questions I asked (which the rest of the students in class, against all odds, managed to interpret correctly and answer insightfully). I am merely lazy and out of touch, and her current grade is only a reflection of my frustration at being overeducated and not quite a genius. Well, perhaps not only–I also enjoy the head-rush that comes with the exercise of absolute power when I assign an F.

To sum up: bite me, notsneaky.

You assumed that the students would understand your brilliance and the only reason they cannot answer the question correctly is because they are intellectually unfit to read your brilliant mind. You got frustration.

What??? Talk about mind reading…

Alas, having identified six cases of casual plagiarism [i.e. copying passages from a referenced text, often right next to a correctly-quoted extract, proving they do understand the difference…] in the last 25 coursework essays I marked – from second and third-year students – my patience with extended coursework, of which I am normally a tireless advocate, is wearing thin.

Of course there are understandable frustrations felt by many students, but I feel I must stick up for the professors.

You are a boorish idiot who has neither the maturity nor the intelligence required for college work… Etc., etc.

But why take it personally, notsneaky? If it doesn’t apply, it doesn’t apply.

The problem is that your comment is completely general, and is really quite sneering about those “understandable frustrations” and the expressions of frustration they give rise to.

And you know what I mean about the “you” thing.

No, I don’t know what you mean about the you thing.

“So you asked an ambigous question. You got an ambigous answer.”

That’s a direct quote from your comment. I, of course, was simply parodying to make a point. (See how easy it is to think that by “you” I meant *you* or *most students*, rather than some isolated student, somewhere or other?)

Of course there are crappy professors. Who said there weren’t? I’ve had a bunch myself. What gets me is that quite often, when somebody complains about particular students (as the posts at ratemystudents do), or pokes gentle fun at some common student foibles (as this post does), it occasions a rant about lazy professors who have an inflated sense of their own brilliance.

Anon, engels,

Since I gotta spell out the obvious – my “you” was not addressed to either of … you. It was an abstract “you”. I could have used pretty much any pronoun there I wanted. But anon’s “you” was pretty clearly directed at a specific person. And that makes all the difference.

Get it now?

No, quite clearly, mine was an abstract “you,” as well, since I was parodying your comment. I don’t know you personally; how could I possibly know whether or not you are a boor or an idiot?

That abstract “you” that you (and I) used doesn’t quite have the rhetorical effect that perhaps you intended. It certainly comes off as if you intend to be saying something about the entire class of college instructors, rather than just those few that are lazy and self-important. That you’re talking about a feature of instructors in general is reinforced when go on to say “Grad student TAs tend to be the worst about it.”

“That you’re talking about a feature of instructors in general is reinforced when go on to say “Grad student TAs tend to be the worst about it.””

No, that just means that this phenomenon is higher among TAs (and come on, we all know lots of TAs and straight-outta grad school folks have a chip on their shoulder vis a vis the undergrads) than more senior instructors. It doesn’t mean that all, or even most TAs are horrible instructors. You know, like 25 out of a 100 compared to say, 15 out of a hundred. The fact that you insist on taking this personally and making it applicable to “ALL instructors” is strange.

Oh would you shut the hell up; the original post was a joke.

This reminds me of exams I graded in a history class I was TA’ing. One hapless individual stands out. He not only used purple ink, and engaged in the frantic scribbling mentioned above, he forgot to turn the pages of his blue book.

I do not lie. He presumably reached the end of one section and went on to the next while being so stoned, or in such a desperate funk, that he didn’t realize that you should turn the page when you run out of white space.

The resulting scribble was densely purple and could not be deciphered.

Give them hell, Radek. I’m sure in most cases they reap what they sow indeed; after all they are teachers.

“Not applicable to the quite different UK system (in which, eg, one cannot assign one’s own book, does not set the exam, and does not know, much of the time, whether the examinees are the students one taught).”

Are you familiar with the University of Oxford?

This sort of exam is demeaning to students and reflects a teacher who misunderstands the fundamentals of his subject and has no apparent love or respect for it.

Let me get this straight: this exam should not be given?

Perfect Exam Answer:
I entend too show that [last phrase from question] by dicussing the [phrase prof used most often during course] and [random item pulled from syllabus].

[phrase most often used by prof, slightly paraphrased]. [paraphrase of entire question as statement].

Clearly, [slight paraphrase of notes about random syllabus item – memorized last night over beer and coffee].
[slightly different paraphrase of entire question as statement].

And in conclusion [last phrase of question] is demonstrated by [syllabus item] and more emportantly [prof pet phrase].

[Note: the spele-ing airroars are important. This is an exam not an assignment, you want to look ready but not overly so.]

“Must be the heat…”

Finals.

Oh god. My coursework essays were on questions 9 and 10, my essays on the transcendental deduction was a model answer to 1 and I answered 8a several times. I apologise deeply to whoever has to mark my scripts.

In seriousnses though, it’s not a whole barrel of laughs to be writing the essays either. To prepare (what you thought was) thoroughly for a topic only to be thrown an unusual question on the day that you can’t think how to answer during the few minutes you have to actually consider and plan your answer is pretty horrendous. It feels a lot better to write four pages of semi-relevance than to scrap for a couple of sides of a properly directed answer, even if the mark gained as a result is no different.