Exam Tip #2

I wanted to take the half day off to run some errands yesterday, but thought that since I have an exam today students might come looking for me. So I stayed in my office and did some marking instead. Nobody came, zero, and I thought based on the carry marks many students are having problems. We’ll see.

Quite many actually came to see me earlier this week and last week. Nobody came to ask me to clarify a concept or help solve an exercise problem, however. They all came just for some giveaway extra assignment, some consideration, to push up their carry marks. Nobody ever came to see me during the whole semester too; even after the disastrous mid-semester test.

[SIGH]

Okay, exam tip #2 is an obvious one: answer the question.

“Huh?”

It may come as a surprise, but many students did not do well in exams simply because they didn’t answer the question. I am not referring to the blank pages here – there are those too – but many wrote about B when the question asked about A.

Perhaps they didn’t read the question properly. Perhaps they did, but misunderstood the question entirely. Often I suspect it’s the latter, because most of the students now have poor command of the English language.

During last week’s exam I was asked several times to explain the meaning of three words: independent, dampen, and forthcoming. Perhaps we should allow dictionaries as we do calculators in the exam hall.

Sorry, no kitty today. :D