<p>Ok, well some of my friends and a senior (somewhat like a peer-adviser) had been telling me about what we could do on tests like math, by writing out simple stuff such as an equation that you know you need to get some partial points.</p>
<p>Though on my second midterm, it was completely horrible. I understood how to do everything, and I had all the correct steps! The reason why I didn’t do so well because I kind of rushed a bit… because it was like 10 minutes for a word problem (and this is Precalculus). So I barely had time to check over my work.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was wondering, what should I do? This midterm grade is really bad… because whoever graded this did not care about partial points at all. Like I had all the correct steps, did the correct processes, but just miscalculated at some parts, which then messed up later steps (even though the later steps were correct).</p>
<p>This is my first quarter in college though, and I never had argue for a grade before, but that’s what a friend told me I should do. I remember one of my high school teacher told me about how he had to argue for a better grade as well when he was in college. Though I don’t know how to approach the professor since I never went to his office hours before, so he doesn’t know me quite as well. I was wondering if you guys had ever argued about a midterm where some grader decided to grade harshly (like mine, since the person didn’t care about the steps rather the person cared if I got the correct variables and numbers in the steps).</p>
<p>Example: I had only got 3 points… lost 7 points because I accidentally added too much of one variable than I needed (for this maximizing fence problem). Though all the steps were correct, if I had took out those extras that I accidentally added, I would have gotten to the right answer with the steps I used, but only just got 3 points for the correct parts at the beginning…</p>
<p>Is it worth it… or should I just let it go and hope for the best I do really well on the final exam. Any advice?</p>
<p>You could ask the professor about the general grading policy - specifically whether partial credit should be more generous. It sounds like you did get some partial credit, though.</p>
<p>First of all, don’t argue with the professor because it will make them less inclined to change your grade. If a TA graded the test, you could tell the professor (politely) that you disagree with how it was graded and ask the professor to regrade it himself. If the professor was the one who graded it go to office hours and go over the exam to “see what went wrong” and follow Cheddarcheese’s advice.</p>
<p>Oh oops, yeah. I didn’t mean to “argue.” Word choice of word xD. I meant to “discuss,” and hopefully resolve. But yeah, I have no idea who graded it actually (from what I heard, there are different kind of graders, like the TA told us about there are other graders out there as well).</p>
<p>But alright, I’ll try to go to his office hours then and ask him about what I could have done better on the final exam, then show him like on the previous midterm, how I messed up some parts but still understand… though I don’t know how to open up and bring out “can you regrade this midterm.” Like how to approach or ask? o.o</p>
<p>It sounds as if you got partial credit on the 10-point problem. Half of 7 would be 3.5, and most professors and TAs will round down instead of up when giving partial credit, so 3/10 would be partial credit. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any way that you can convince him to regrade it. Some of my friends have gone to my math professor’s office hours to have something regraded, and he actually did raise them a few points. Sometimes, if the professor listens to your reasoning and can tell that you are not trying to BS him or her for more points, then he or she will be generous and raise your grade a bit. It’s worth a shot. Just don’t go to his office and say, “I think this was graded too harshly” or “I think I deserve a better grade”. </p>
<p>Eh, well from the midterm, all I saw were circles and points given next to certain stuff. Then the person doesn’t really cross out or mark anything, only just circles some parts and gives points for being correct at certain places.</p>
<p>But yeah, hopefully he’ll be more generous. I don’t think I can lose anymore points than this… there were some places that I started correctly, but misunderstood the question a bit, but did everything correctly from the beginning to the end and got 0 points for it (it was like a mini-question). It was like calculate the inverse of a g(f(x)), but I messed up at the beginning, so I got the wrong g(f(x)), but calculated the inverse and its steps correctly, but gained no points for it.</p>
<p>But yeah, how do you approach and ask him? O.o what do you say?</p>
<p>I was a TA for a couple of years as an undergrad, so keep in mind that I’m talking from that perspective.</p>
<p>Every class will have different grading policies. Just because other people in different classes with different professors received a lot of partial credit doesn’t mean that you will. It becomes unfair when you have the exact same work as another student in the same class with the same professor and they received more credit than you did. It’s likely that every student in your class who made those same mistakes received the same amount of partial credit.</p>
<p>When we graded exams, we usually had some sort of grading rubric that said how to assign partial credit for problems. Sometimes, it was up to us to come up with. Sometimes, we asked the professor for tricky answers. As long as it’s consistent across all of the students, it’s fair.</p>
<p>A lot of students asked for more credit to problems that they had received some partial credit but not as much as they thought they should, and to be honest, most students didn’t get anything more. Some did when the professor thought that more partial credit should have been given for a problem, but more often then not, they maintained what the TA gave. Sometimes, they regraded and gave less partial credit for answers where TAs were too generous. But at the end of the day, the answer was wrong, so really, you should get a zero. Any partial credit is a bonus. One professor I had put it like this: don’t argue for more points for a wrong answer. At the end of the day, your answer was still wrong, and it’s good that you got some partial credit.</p>
<p>That being said, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Talk to your professor and ask if you could go through your exam because you hope to do better on the final. Ask for advice on how to improve. It’s okay to ask what the grading policy was and how partial credit was assigned. Your professor may say that if you did this, you got X points; if you did this, you lost Y points; if you had this, you had Z points; and that’s how it was for every student. That is what it is and you won’t get anymore points. Your professor may also say, oh, you should have gotten X amount of points, or I think the grader was too harsh on this problem. Or you may not. At this point, you should focus on how you can improve your performance on the final. It sounds like time management was a problem for you on the exam. Perhaps, you can ask for strategies on how to do better at that.</p>
<p>@Mewtwo - I would just go to his office and ask him to explain why some answers were awarded partial credit and others weren’t. Then, he may look over the whole exam and regrade all of it, or he may just ask to look at the questions of which you have concern. As stated above, if he truly regrades the whole exam, you could possibly get a lower score; however, in my experience, the professor would probably give you the higher of the two scores and call it a day. </p>
<p>As I mentioned earlier, be respectful of him and do not sound accusatory or pompous. If you are really respectful, then he will be more inclined to honor your request.</p>
<p>I was also a TA and instructor in grad school. I’m glad you changed from “argue” to “discuss.” I was fine discussing people’s exams with them, but when they came to me in an accusatory way and/or made it clear that the discussion was going to be contentious, I was much less inclined to help them.</p>
<p>With that said, different professors have different policies on partial credit (both formal and unspoken). Some classes (like my own) would take off some points if you used the wrong numbers or messed up in the beginning, but you’d get the points if you did the rest of the problem correctly. Other professors would only give you a minority of the points if you did the steps right but got the math wrong. Both ways are justifiable.</p>
<p>So yeah, I would begin by asking him how partial credit is graded on your exam, and proceed from there. Politely point out the potential error. With students who approached me civilly, I was always happy to give them the extra points - and if there was ambiguity, I usually awarded it in their favor.</p>
<p>Yeah, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I might decide to go to his office hours tomorrow and maybe just go through the midterm with him, showing the score first then explain what had happened, and what I could do. Though I’m not sure about how to bring up the points, but I might show him that I understood how to do everything but needed help managing the time to check the work and not mess up later in the future (especially when I started writing a bunch of decimals for the ln of some number which took up a lot of time).</p>
<p>Hopefully there wouldn’t be a lot of students around though… that’s what I’m nervous about going to office hours to discuss about it, when you can’t really get that one-on-one with the professor sometime. Also I’m a little intimidated by him… but eh, I’ll try my best.</p>
<p>You likely will be able to ask for an appointment with the professor as well, if you can’t get your questions answered during office hours or if you’d prefer to ask questions in private without other students around. Most professors are willing to meet with students at other times, if office hours aren’t working out. I did that with professors when I had class or another commitment during their office hours.</p>
<p>You did get partial credit. It’s up to the graders to grade them as they see fit. I’ve had math professors that have given no partial credit at all. You can discuss it with the professor to see if they think more partial credit should be given, but it sounds like you might be grasping at straws with this. </p>