What's YOUR opinion?

[alkatran]

I just got a major test back (it's geography, so don't worry). I received the esteemed mark of "73". Know why? Because I was given 5/20 on a section.

Now, what I did wrong was":
We had to make an "age pyramid", where we put everyone of said age in a graph representing their % of the total population.
However, since male is seperated from female, I made the mistake of putting them in the % of the population of the same sexe.

Now, this error was simply changing

X/2111*100 to x/949*100

But it cost me EVERY DAMN ANSWER!


Now, the question is, and I unsuccesfully tried to use this to get some points, should I be punished multiple times for my one mistake? My teacher's argument is "The answers are wrong" whereas mine is "The answers are wrong because the first answer is wrong! I shouldn't lose all the points, I did the work correctly!"

Vote now... NOW!

[twanvl]

Why is this under maths?

Usually, in a test (especialy in important ones, exams, etc.) Each question has a number of points that the question must contain, e.g.
a.
- use method X : 1 point
- get right solution: 1pt
b.
- mention Y: 1pt
- etc.

So, IMHO, it would be fair if only points where substracted for question a. Unfortunatly for you, the world isn't very fair, and there is not much you can do about this. You could have a discussion with your teacher about the issue, but that would probably boil down to "I have been correcting tests this way all my career, and I'm not going to change my ways because you tell me"

[alkatran]

The question had math in it... correcting a math question is very different than correcting (most) english questions.

Although I could compare it to placing a comma instead of a period, then losing points for putting a comma, NOT putting a period, AND not capitalizing the next letter! (and if he's a rela *****, for not putting 2 spaces before the next word)

[MartinLiss]

My wife, who was a teacher, says that if you were able to show your work for the latter questions and if that work was correct that they shouldn't have been marked as incorrect.

[alkatran]

My work was taking the number I received (using my incorrect number ) and drawing it onto a graph.

Yes, more agree!

[Dreamlax]

Maths exams here are marked by steps (i.e. you must show your working). If one of your steps is wrong, then most often than not the rest of the steps will be wrong, but if they are right according to the step you got wrong (i.e. you still correctly used the right method to attempt to get the final answer, using a wrong value) you still get consistency marks.

Say there is a question which requires about 7 steps of working. If you get step 2 wrong, you can still get 6/7 marks if the rest of the steps are right.

[hellswraith]

Maybe I am just a hard ass, but if you got them wrong, you got them wrong. I understand the whole "but math is a multiple step process that should be scored indepdently" crap. When it comes down to it, you did it wrong.

Think about it. An engineer is doing calculations for a building structure to ensure the structure will hold the loads placed on it. Now this said engineer uses a wrong calculation in multiple places. This leads to a thousand people dying when the building collapsed on itself. Now, the lawyers are suing the engineer. Do you think he has a case by stating that only one of the thousand families can sue him because he made the same calculation mistake on 1000 different parts of the structure? NO.

Sure, you can argue all you want about the differences, but you still got it wrong. Wrong once, or a thousand times, it is still wrong for all.

This is not a personal attack on you, but more of a attack on the way the schools score math. I am sorry, but if you don't get the right answer, then it is wrong. If I was a math teacher, I couldn't care less how you came up with the answer (of course I would make sure you showed your work so I could tell if you were cheating), all I would care about is the final answer. I mean, if you don't come up with the right answer, what was the point of doing the problem.

[Dreamlax]

I don't, I think that if you get one step wrong it does not mean that you are doing the entire method wrong, it just means you are doing it with the wrong value. Therefore, you are still showing you know how to use 6 out of the 7 (in my case before) steps of the entire method, not none.

[DiGiTaIErRoR]

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If one fails, the rest fail in that series.

Take this example:

In grade school we were given a timed math quiz.

Simple problems, such as:

2 + 2 - 4

But the instructions stated for every +, *; and for every -, /.

Though 2+2-4 is 0, 2*2/4 is 1. 1 is the answer, not 0. Even though you may have answered all the questions with consistency, or precision, they're not accurate. A true result is absolutely accurate. You failed to be accurate, so you failed to get the points.

We all make mistakes, don't whine.

[alkatran]

True, if I mad an engineering mistake I SHOULD be sued, because it WAS my fault.

But school is a different situation, school is about learning HOW to do it. Learning HOW to FIX your mistakes.

In my opinion, tests are to see if you know how to do a problem, not if you can do it. Once you enter an employment it's about doing it right everytime, always. (take a break on the new guy, eh?)

That's why you receive points on math tests for showing your work.

While I agree there are hundreds of situations where I would be wrong, there's definitely some where I'm right.


Oh, and I would love to watch that court case

[TheManWhoCan]

If the point of a test is to show that you understand how to do something, you should have got "error carried forward" for all but the initial mistake.

[bugzpodder]

its a lesson that everybody should learn

[RAEsquivelC]

Alkatran, if your test corrector were a fair person, the most that you should have received as wrong for missing the one question would be ONLY that one question! However, in life you will meet all sorts of person, some just like this corrector (maybe the corrector and the teacher are not even one and the same).

I had to swallow my pride when, at age 30 and with a degree in Civil Engineering plus some six years of work as an engineer, i enrolled at a university to obtain an Electrical Egineering degree. I had to take some of the sophomore courses that were missing in my Civil Engineering courses, and had a very young (23 years old) professor, who misinterpreted one of my answers. Thinking I had a "just" claim, I argued my case and asked if he would reconsider, to which he replied, "Of course, I can reconsider your answer, but, to be fair, i will have to reconsider your whole test, and regrade it. It could be that your answers are not as good as I thought, and your resulting grade may be lower that it is now. Do you still want me to reconsider your case?" I quickly grasped the situation that, as a student, I was a buck private, and he, as a professor, was a tough, mean old sargent, and answered, very meekly, "No, Sir, I now believe that you graded my answer correctly." After that, I had no more trouble with this professor.

I can say this: that professor taught me that meekness is sometimes the best way! So, Alkatran, take it on the jaw, grin, and bear it. Such is life, sometimes. It's O.K. to try, but, if you see that you simply cannot win, just accept it, and get on with your life.

Yes, Alkatran, you are right in feeling the unjustness of it all! Yes, Alkatran, as another poster said before, "Life is not always just", learn that, and forget this incident, as dwelling

[nishantp]

I had a chem teacher who would do that.

If you put the molar mass of say O2 as 16g/mol instead of 32g/mol, you would get the entire question wrong. Annoyed the hell out of me, but I did learn not to do that. Besides, in my experience, most teachers don't mark lke that anyways.

[wossname]

I once failed my VB c&g certificate because I forgot to append vbTab to the end of an output string. It was a 3 hour time limit and I'd got everything else perfect. I walked out after 30 minutes confident of a job well done.

Just goes to show the devil is in the details.

Console yourself - it's only geography, just a filler subject to pad out the week a bit. You'll have forgotten that tripe in a few months anyway.

if(pYou->Like(S"Geography"))
pMessage->LastParagraph.Ignore();

[wossname]

In addition, I'm amazed that the Yes votes are beating the No's.

This is predominantly a programming forum site, programmers have to get things right don't they? This has never stopped me though, my programs rarely workproperly, even after months of tinkering.

Hope this pacemaker holds ou-.....

[alkatran]

Programmers understand that if you write a program that has 7 functions, and only 6 of them work, it takes less time to fix than if 5 functions contain errors.

Although it is a lot easier to spot 6 going wrong.