Now I know how teachers feel.
 

Been a while since I've posted, so just giving a small update, and a tiny, tiny rant. I am a computer science major, so it might get a bit techy with the humor.

I've been a tutor for university for a long time (this is my 4th year) and even longer if I include high school, and over my time I have been asked some seriously stupid questions. For example, I had to spend the entirety of how to make a solid colored L using two rectangles in java (I already gave the code on how to make a solid rectangle). There are some students you just can't save. Some of them are just comical, yet understandable, (what happens if I use "old Scanner" instead of new?) But I got stepped up for being a TA for the class Master's Class Information and Privacy Security. This is a master's level class, so I expected higher quality questions, and there were no stupid questions.

However.... I also am currently grading finals. I looked over the test and WOW. This test was way easy. 3 questions per page, 7 pages, so 21 questions total. And the majority of them were answerable in 1 sentence. Here is a literal example of one of the questions that appeared on the test.

1. Give an example of two-factor authentication.

I'll explain the answer quickly. A single factor authentication system typically only uses one thing to authenticate a user. (Two if you count username, but that's atypical) We have one on this website. Just a password. One factor However, if you secure your gmail with your phone or play guild wars, you might have used your phone to authenticate yourself as well, even after using a password. So my professor said if they list two forms of authentication, it makes it valid. Here are a list of valid answers to this question.

1. Token and Password
2. Phone and Password
3. Biometric and Password
4. Image recognition and Password

Or you can put them in a single full sentence.

But holy crap, while some answers were still right, I had to search the entirety of their ESSAY response to the question. The question was give an example, not a definition, not a history of it, or where it's used. A legit answer from this exam was a full explanation of the google 2 factor authentication, why he knew it, how he told his brother to use it, and the benefits of it. Answer is still right, but this was supposed to be a one sentence answer (it was only worth 5 points!). The worst answer was a full diagram, and a paragraph explaining the diagram, and it STILL being wrong.

This was a common trend. It was so crazy what the wrote as answers that after we finished the first page, my professor couldn't handle reading the bullshit anymore. I now know, how they feel when we give them the utmost bullshit, because I've had to grade it myself.

Anyway, sucks being a masters student, and dear god, they want to fund me for a Ph.D. Why me? They're already having me take a Doctoral Research Topics as a masters student. (COMP 895 if you you want to know the number) Wish I had time. Maybe I'd improve if I did.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

tbh the questions people ask in intro comp sci class are beyond what I would expect of the average human being.

ppl still ask about order of operations in java like they forgot grade 4 math.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

To be fair, operator precedence goes a lot further than simple PEMDAS.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

Sadly, this wasn't an intro course. These were people with degrees already.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

Exams force students to write down something if they don't want a zero. It becomes problematic in STEM when professors could make their students be aware of what the exams will cover.

Take the example of an Algorithm Analysis course. A question asking about using a recursion tree diagram to help get a guess for the substitution method in proving running time requires the exam taker to write a diagram with a long explanation -- even if it's wrong.

Hindsight bias is very powerful when it comes to exams. I've had professors who made exams way different from what was covered in class (like Assembly, that professor was disorganized and unhelpful) and these exams ended up being a mess of essays for answers. It's also part of the professor's responsibility to guide students in their learning.

I know a professor at my university who is basically punishing students for submitting assignments because they're not exactly the way he wants it. And that results in large essay-type responses like you describe. There are many possible reasons why students would write like that, and previous experience with other professors may incline them to do so even if questions can be answered concisely.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

Fair enough. I can agree with this, and I'm guilty of it myself. I just now this professor is very lenient. At this point he was giving credit if it SOUNDED close. Lol.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

Dossar nailed the point on the head, I went for education and I can see how the current system would result in what he's talking about. I mean, it's basically "common-core mathing" every answer on every test. Sometimes the answer is enough.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

I only write long answers if I'm not sure what the correct answer is, so I feel a need to explain my reasoning in hopes of getting at least partial credit.

I did that on one of my last exams and got hit with 0/5 on the question and the professor wrote "Um..." in red at the end :P.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

you don't get like...length limits on your answers? just got an exam back where responses had to be like 2-4 sentences max, and he doesn't take kindly to run-ons

i've also learned when helping write some that the way you manipulate space is a factor - if you leave a lot of blank space, people might think they have to fill it

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

That's generally situational.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

Problem 1
Show that 1+1=2. Hint: Principia Mathematica.
*hundreds of blank pages follow*

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

I can prove that in 372 pages or less.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

(100 points)
No partial credit.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

And you only have 30 minutes to answer the question.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

On a related note, there was an Algorithm Analysis exam back in the day where two questions were worth 25% each of the exam (totaling 50%) and each said:

No Partial Credit

Class average ended up being a 56 on that exam with a standard deviation of 22. I talked to someone who got a 31 on it. Nice meme.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

I am curious what the questions were now

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

scores like that seem common for cs theory classes and idk why

20% was a C when i took complexity theory

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

my first computer architecture test last semester had a variance of 79 lmao, and there were no outliers. the scores were for the most part evenly distributed from 18 up to 97.

And some poor kid got a 2% on a linear algebra midterm, on which I scored a 108 lul

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

It depends how many "no partial credit" questions there are and how the professor helps students prepare for an exam.

To have an idea of how bad Assembly was, the first exam scores ranged from 15-80, and the second exam scores ranged from 7-100. Average was around a 40 for both.

The TA was so bad with zero-bombing students, and my professor was disorganized and unhelpful -- my 70 average ended up being an A- and I'm not sure how that class was scaled considering there was basically no middle ground, haha.

Re: Now I know how teachers feel.
 

and this is why i got a physics degree.