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Old 12-09-2008, 08:38 PM
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Default Not What She's Expecting ...

So, I'm taking a brief, much-needed break from writing my final exams.

There's this one girl in one of my classes who always does rather poorly on the lab exams. We'll call her "Elizabeth." Interestingly, she has done rather better on the lecture exams. Not spectacularly better, but sufficiently better that she's in no real danger of failing the course if she continues in such vein.


I've wondered for some time why she seems to do better in the lecture portion of the class, because it's for dang sure not because she's paying attention. She sits in the very back, makes no pretense of paying attention, and sometimes spends much of the class text-messaging on her phone. It's downright insulting, to tell the truth: I'd rather she didn't show up at all.

Legally, we're not permitted to forbid cell phones in class, sadly. I've pointedly said, once or twice, that if you can't be bothered to pay attention in class, you might as well not bother to come, as it's insulting to the instructor and to the rest of the students. If she got the point -- or even heard it -- she has given no sign.


Recently, one of her classmates informed me that the young woman in question divulged to her that Elizabeth is taking the class only because she has to, and that her only concern is that she passes, since she doesn't think she'll need it for any of her future classes.

She's dead wrong. This class is required for the degree program that she's in, and for a reason. Several past students have told me how happy they are that they paid attention in my class because the next class in the sequence is based on the assumption that you're very familiar with the material from my class -- and if you aren't, you'll flunk out PDQ.


But why is Elizabeth doing conspicuously better in the lecture than the lab, despite putting so little effort into it? Well, my informant told me that Elizabeth's roommate took the course with me last year, and that Elizabeth has been going over last years' exams and memorizing the questions and their answers. I don't give the same exams from year to year, but evidently there's enough overlap that you can get a passing grade by studying those. (This trick can't help you in the lab, since I just stick pins in bones, muscles, whatever more or less at random for the lab exams. "Oh, that spinodeltoid was well-dissected; I think I'll stick a pin in that -- ah, here's a good clavotrapezius ..." Accordingly, there's going to be little or no repetition from one year to the next as far as the lab exams are concerned.)


So anyway, I'm deliberately ensuring that the exam I give tomorrow morning will have no questions on it that had been on the last year's final. I'm curious to see how Elizabeth fares.

Speaking of which, I still have a few more questions to write ...


Cheers,

Michael
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Old 12-09-2008, 08:46 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

You may want to amend your previous thread's title from "Girls are Evil!" to "Michael is Evil!"

(I have no substantive comment on the actual meat of this thread.)
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Old 12-09-2008, 08:48 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

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Old 12-09-2008, 08:55 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...



If you are really evil, Michael, you can include questions that are very similar but have different answers, for maximum lulz.
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Old 12-09-2008, 09:33 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Heh. That would be mean. If I was feeling really evil, I'd try to write the exam so that, at a cursory glance, you'd think that it was the exact same test as last year, if you knew what last year's test looked like. Only each question would be subtly re-worded so that the correct answer was the parasympathetic nervous system instead of the sympathetic nervous system, or some such thing.


I'm almost finished with the exam, and I've gone to some trouble to make sure that not even one question from last year's exam is on this one. Anyone who has studied the material will do fine. Anyone who has studied last year's exam instead of the class notes (that's assuming you take notes -- and I can't recall ever seeing any evidence that she does) and the text book is going to find him/herself very far up a certain creek without a paddle.


I had this fantasy flit through my head that, upon receiving her copy of the exam, she glanced at it and blurted out, "But ... but ... these questions weren't on last year's exam!"

"And how, exactly, would you be in a position to know that?" would be my response.


Well, we shall see.


Never piss off the guy upon whom your academic career depends.

Cheers,

Michael
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Old 12-09-2008, 09:39 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Evil incarnate. :caramba:
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Old 12-09-2008, 09:59 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

I am relieved to see that a dark spirit of liberal academia has possessed you. I was beginning to worry you couldn't continue your lecture series when we're all in Hell together. Except for yguy, who'll have to spend eternity sucking Christ's cock.
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  #8  
Old 12-09-2008, 10:21 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Heh....I aced a geology midterm because I was trying to skate on it while I gave more attention to my social & cultural anthropology midterm, exactly because I'd asked a friend who'd taken the same geology prof a year before what kind of exams he gave. My friend gave me his graded midterm as an example of the prof's style. So, after spending all night agonizing over a frikkin' take home essay exam for anthro, getting only two hours of sleep before walking into the geology exam...I was pleasantly surprised to find that the example exam my friend had provided was, indeed, the exact same exam as the one I had to take. I aced both exams.
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Old 12-09-2008, 10:44 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by godfry n. glad View Post
Heh....I aced a geology midterm because I was trying to skate on it while I gave more attention to my social & cultural anthropology midterm, exactly because I'd asked a friend who'd taken the same geology prof a year before what kind of exams he gave. My friend gave me his graded midterm as an example of the prof's style. So, after spending all night agonizing over a frikkin' take home essay exam for anthro, getting only two hours of sleep before walking into the geology exam...I was pleasantly surprised to find that the example exam my friend had provided was, indeed, the exact same exam as the one I had to take. I aced both exams.
This sort of thing is very very very widespread in college, because teachers usually change their tests little if any from semester to semester.
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Old 12-09-2008, 10:47 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Oh, I think not basing any of the questions on the assigned reading is a bit evil. My learning style doesn't do well with verbal instructions.
I don't comprehend lectures as nearly as well as written material.
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:00 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

I've never gone to the trouble of getting a previous exam to study. Mostly because I don't usually go to much trouble to study in general.
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:08 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Naruto View Post
This sort of thing is very very very widespread in college, because teachers usually change their tests little if any from semester to semester.
I'm kinda surprised by this. Past exams are available to students here, in fact it's suggested that we use them as guides to what will be expected from us. Some lecturers re-use questions, but I'm not sure you could get passing grades just by memorising answers to them. Also, at least in some cases, doing that memorising amounts to the same thing as learning course material, for example a recurring question on a geology exam I had was to write a short essay on a fossil group, including diagram, classification, geological period and occurence, and significance in terms of dating and deposition environment.
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:18 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

It depends a lot on the course and the kind of questions asked.

For instance, in my Anatomy and Physiology class, it was pretty easy to re-write the exam so as to ensure there was no repetition of questions. That's because an awful lot of it is straight terminology and definitions. So all I have to do is ensure that I pick a different set of terms and definitions this time around than I did last time.

For, say, my Ecology class, that would be a lot more difficult. It's much more about understanding and explaining concepts. Since there are a limited number of concepts to understand and explain, a test from last year would inevitably ask rather similar questions as does the test from this year, even if it was written and prepared by an entirely different professor.


Actually, I don't really disapprove of students consulting tests from previous years for hints on how to study. Heck, I even give them sample questions beforehand for study purposes. But if any of them thinks that's all she needs to do in order to pass the course, and that she can show up to class, ignore the instructor, and spend the time texting her friends, I think it's high time she was disabused of that notion.



Cheers,

Michael
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:34 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Qingdai View Post
Oh, I think not basing any of the questions on the assigned reading is a bit evil. My learning style doesn't do well with verbal instructions.
I don't comprehend lectures as nearly as well as written material.
Is it the "lectures, no matter how interesting, make me fall asleep" problem? I've got that, too.
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:38 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

No, it's not that. I don't fall asleep easily at all. I just have trouble following lectures.
I pretty much have to write down every word then read it later, to have it make sense.
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:47 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

I understand the first few minutes okay.

Then I fall asleep. :blush:
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Old 12-10-2008, 12:37 AM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

When I was taking Biophysics there was a group of students that tried to study the last year's exam. Studying it would have done you no good if you didn't understand the concepts.
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Old 12-10-2008, 12:44 AM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Yup. That's one reason why I don't worry about the Ecology exams. If the students are paying any attention at all in class, they should already know perfectly well what the questions will be before I hand out the exams. It's not a question of whether or not you know the definitions; it's a question of whether or not you understand the concepts.

For an Anatomy class though, where the questions are more along the lines of "define homeostasis," the situation's a bit different.

Cheers,

Michael
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Old 12-10-2008, 01:59 AM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

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Old 12-10-2008, 11:47 AM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

I found past exam questions really useful. When I'd got sick of studying (it didn't take long, I hated and still do hate revision), I would look them up. If I could do the last two or three papers cold, without notes, I'd stop revising. If I couldn't, I'd keep studying.

What I'd usually find was that the optional problem sheets we were expected (but not required) to do as we went through the course were the best guide to what would be on the exam. To the extent where I would see the same questions, with subtle differences, in the exam. Often the problem sheets were harder than the exam!

I would be one of the few dedicated souls that had grinded away at the problem sheets long after others had fallen behind or given up. It often felt a terribly unfair advantage to see modified versions of these questions appear on the exam - but then, I could never count on it, and I had worked hard to do them in the first place.
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Old 12-10-2008, 03:20 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

When I was studying Cobol programming (just a formality, really, since I could already code in three languages), we had a delightful part-time lecturer (he also worked as a software architect for some big bank) who would go into great depth about the history of the language, computing history, interesting new developments in the field and so on. He really had a passion for it that went beyond his job(s).

In any event, it was a private college famous for being one of those places rich parents sent their kids when they'd failed elsewhere. They practically guaranteed results and in the case of the Computer School division of the College, even guaranteed jobs (they would go out and find work for people who passed).

And instead of being delighted to have such an engaging, intelligent and interested lecturer, the majority of my fellow students grew increasingly pissed off by the fact that we spent so much time on issues we would not be tested on.

So they complained to the administration. after a few months he was replaced. By someone who basically had a mountain of old tests and spent a large proportion of our time going through them with us, highlighting any answers that might have changed slightly due to developments in the field.

Man was I pissed. At both the new lecturer and the students. I couldn't believe the fact that these guys were quite willing to pass with a minimum understanding of actual programming logic, for practical and design, and rote-learning of the theory, as if it were a grocery list to be checked off.
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  #22  
Old 12-10-2008, 07:00 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Saddening ... but not unexpected for "a private college famous for being one of those places rich parents sent their kids when they'd failed elsewhere", I suppose.

You missed out the important details. Did anyone flash parts of their sexual organs at this delightful lecturer?
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Old 12-10-2008, 09:10 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

Times have sure changed since I went to college. I hated physics which was required for photography majors, I wanted biology or botany sciences. But I had to pay attention and study to get a decent grade, there was no old tests to study.

LR, I hope you report back on how she did on the test.
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Old 12-10-2008, 09:12 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

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LR, I hope you report back on how she did on the test.
Absolutely. We gladly shared your consternation; now we wants us some schadenfreude! ;)
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Old 12-10-2008, 09:51 PM
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Default Re: Not What She's Expecting ...

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Times have sure changed since I went to college. I hated physics which was required for photography majors, I wanted biology or botany sciences. But I had to pay attention and study to get a decent grade, there was no old tests to study.

LR, I hope you report back on how she did on the test.
Oh...I don't think they've changed all that much. She thought she could skate. My bet is she falls on her ass. It will do her good. Failure is where a lot of new data is obtained.
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