<p>Have any of you guys ever made a very simple mistake that caused you to not do well on an exam? On a math exam I wrote 3x instead of 3x^2, which caused me to get half credit for all the answers on the page, because they were based off of that first question. This prevented me from getting a good grade on the exam.</p>
<p>It happens. You would figure that the grader (most likely your teacher/instructor/professor since I am to assume it’s a math class) would have graded the rest of your answers based on that erroneous response, but he or she is by no means obligated to do so.</p>
<p>Yeah. I talked to my instructor and got him to drop the exam and double the next one based on my section-demonstrated mastery of the material. You’d be surprised how subjective college grading can be, even math.</p>
<p>yeah, don’t trust the TA’s.</p>
<p>That’s really rough. In my experience as a math major, TA’s always mark in such a way that little (or even big) errors don’t carry through in subsequent questions, which makes perfect sense. I hope you get a better marker next time.</p>
<p>wow, i did the exact same thing, forgetting to square something. Except they gave me no credit on that entire question. It was a 2nd semester calc class, and I took BC calc in high school (didn’t study for the AP because I was on the waitlist, and the school I would have attended didn’t take AP math credit) so to get a 61 on that test really ****ed me off. However I then went on to get a 95 on the next exam with a class avg of 55, so everything turned out aight.</p>
<p>Yeah… I’d agree with ThinMan!
That is rough and I’m sorry your grader graded so harshly, but I’m glad it came out well!
As far as TAs go–they’re there as a liaison between you and the professor, so use them as one. He or she is not just grading your homework–they’re also your peer and understand what you go through as a student, so they’ll want to help you. When I grade, I try to be as fair as possible, but grading as a TA can be very difficult, especially when a professor doesn’t give you the answer key, so you have to grade somewhat subjectively! If you have a question, feel free to ask your professor or even go directly to the TA if you know them.
Also, just a little hint–get to know your TA! We tend to grade more easily if we know you because once we’ve invested in a friendship, the last thing we want is for you to not succeed!
For me as a TA, one of the hardest experiences this year was grading one of my own freshmen from the orientation program’s midterms where she was struggling and having to mark her off on questions! That’s REALLY hard, so you can obviously see how getting to know the TA might have its advantages… (And yes, she still received the grade she deserved, and she did fine. YEAY!)</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<p>although some TA’s are just there to make money, or as a grad school requirement…so beware</p>
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<p>Not if you’re a fair grader. I know all of the kids I TA for. Of course, I know some of them better than others. While I very much dislike giving a bad grade to someome I know and like, honor requires that I grade all papers according to the same standards.</p>
<p>I make stupid mistakes all the time… like forgeting a - sign as I’m doing the problem or suddenly 3^2=6 instead of 9… it happens, sometimes the TA will catch where you messed up & give you partial credit but other times the TA won’t figure out what you did any you’ll get no credit. Not much that can be done about it - just try to be careful to write things correctly & proofread answers if you have time. You could try to talk to your TA and point out where you screwed up & say you agree to get marked off for that one part, but you want more credit for the rest of the answers correctly obtained from the mistake.</p>
<p>I do it all the time also, something stupid here and there, and there goes my grade. But it teaches me to be more careful. Unfortunately TA’s at my school don’t care and penalize you for stupid mistakes.</p>