How often did you get a poor grade in a class despite knowing the material well?

Ryker

Hmm, well, see, but what is the point of grading? Do you give grades for how well someone can perform under the most favourable conditions or how well someone can perform under conditions he will be subjected to in "real life"? And don't worry, I'm not trying to get on your back, because I think I just bombed the Calculus final, even though I did really well thus far (on the midterms, homeworks etc.), as well, but really, looking at it objectively, what good does it do if you can supposedly do well when conditions are perfect, but not when they are just "normal"? Almost like that proverbial tree that no one hears falling conundrum.

I don't know, are you really better at, say, Quantum Mechanics, if you could, theoretically given 300 years, unravel the misteries of the world, than a person who couldn't do that, but can solve hard immediate problems faster and more successfully than you?

╔(σ_σ)╝

It only happens to me on test; when I know the material well but due to lack or practise I lack the speed or confidence to tear through test problems.


What usually happens in these situation is that I am too slow on the test and end up not completing it. Then again, in some way,this is well deserved since I did not "practise" or "study" enough and or properly.

deRham

Exam conditions are not the "normal" ones one usually deals with as a scholar. Extended problem sets with a lot of serious work, expectations of lucid writeup, etc.

Ryker

Well, they are normal as far as life after undergrad is concerned. Every workday feels just like taking an 8- or whatever-hour long test. If anything, test environments are easier on you, unless of course you've hit the jackpot with an easy-going job where you can slack off. And I don't think the aim of university is to prepare students just for a possible route in academia. Not in the slightest. Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think "scholars" are free of pressure to make quick and correct decisions. I think they just have that extensive problem solving as an additional load.

edit: And by that, I don't mean that someone who is bad at taking tests will necessarily do bad when working or otherwise, and vice versa, but I think speaking generally test scores do somewhat reflect your mastery of the material taught. But there are going to be outliers, of course.

TMFKAN64

I've gotten good grades when I didn't have a clue, but never the other way around.

lurky

In my experience, if I didn't do well it was generally my fault. There are some exceptions, like extenuating circumstances that hit right before the final exam, or something, which I have definitely had happen before (and then I always tell the prof, who usually can do something about it, although not always). However, when I find myself whining that I'm never getting a fair shake throughout an entire course, that's my signal to bear down and get to work - it means I'm missing something fundamental and the only way I will ever get it is to just do more problems. Also, it usually means I need an attitude change. Sometimes I can fall into this rut of finding constant excuses for why I did poorly on this test or that assignment, and the only way out is to just accept responsibility for my own performance and move on. And it's important to learn how to spot the signs early enough so that you actually have time to do more problems before the end.

Acuben

isn't the question something everyone is going to say "oh yeah I have"?

just like physab said, it wouldn't matter too much as long as each teacher gives each students grades with fairness.
Although I do have met unfair teacher twice (not that many imo). One was English teacher back in high school who didn't have a set rule for grading. Like she would give extra credit whenever she felt like, take points whenever she felt like. Take late homework whenever she felt like, not take late homework whenever she felt like. Problem was that it wasn't a random chance, but it depended on who was doing it. =p
and anyone in the class can clearly tell who she likes and who she doesn't like and I happened to be the unlucky one. Either way, it didn't matter since even with her inconsistency, I lost some points, but still got an A- so it really didn't bother me
Another teacher I had in college was a teacher that graded the test in unique way. There is a essay portion on his test (although this was a science course) and I was under impression (ofc not 100% sure) that before he grades the tests, he separates the "good student" and "bad student" -grade wise. So the way he grades for "good student" is that he would take off 1 point for every mistake he find on the test.
As for the "bad student" section, he would give 1 point for each correct things he finds.
I was getting average 9 out of 25 points on essay section (which is really big portion of the total grade). And realized other got roughly 20~22 points out of 25 points in general.
After like 3 tests I started comparing the essay word to word and it was really bothering me. I also noticed that some students got less than 10 point, but I don't remember any essays between 10 and 20 points. It was mostly under 10 points or over 20 points.
When I asked the teacher, all he said was that he had a rubric.
When I asked him whether he gives points for every thing that is correct or take point off for every wrong information, he just said he grades fairly on rubric.
I guess that gave him alert call, he graded me fair on finals :D but damage was done and I got C in the course. I think I understood the material pretty well =/
He was cool teacher, but I don't why such thing had to happen ><

Anyways, those teacher who grades hard are just rough xD I just finished the electric circuit course. I think the teacher was being fair, but I made some algebra error in test which costs me a bunch...(little mistakes cost too much points in his test =x) IMO I don't think he can even get A in his own course.
like for e.g, the best test score I had was 80points out of 100 points. 10 points off for accidently switching sin and cos, 4 points for following error (that depended on the previous work, which was the sin and cos I accidentally switched). 2 points for wrong answer (obviously). and 4 points for an algebra mistake from another problem.
I do think I know the material well. Meh I hope I even passed the course >< ...still waiting for grades
fair, sure... but ...oh boy.

deRham

Ryker, I guess it depends on the course. Significant, deep observations tend to require the step back afforded by longer time. Also 8 hours is very different from 1.5 hours.

Work is about producing, at least often, while exams are about performing.

As for not being about academia/research preparation, that depends on the course type. A highly theoretical and advanced, specialized course often should and will be taught differently from a more popularized one.

I think for working, the best school approximation might be a combo of rigorous problem sets (a week is often how long people are given to do certain tasks in industry), and some basic exams (to ascertain ability to not crumble under pressure).

Cinitiator

This happens to me all the time. I always mix up letters and words when there's a lot of information given to me.

deRham

Let me be fair though: sometimes the reason one does not do well is also lack of patience to practice doing the work. And in some courses, the point is really to get some skills at your fingertips. But again, I don't see a point to making the tests of the skills tricky and with too much pressure.

In industry, you don't get partial credit so much. Getting a 50 percent on a hard exam graded on a curve gets you an A, but in industry someone who has the tenacity to do serious work over a slightly extended period and with awareness of deadlines is probably preferred.

-IamLittle-

i just know that i got D in algebra and real analysis
i don't think i deserve it, i did almost all the exercises in my textbook, i understand the material quite well, however the final contain 50% of computation problems, i didn't do any practice about computation, however poor in computation does reflect my knowledge

zpconn

There have been only two instances in my education where I feel like this has happened to me to some extent.

In one case, I don't want to go into details, but I was accused of cheating on a take-home exam in front of the class and challenged to reproduce my submitted solutions on the board without notes, on-the-spot, while being questioned by the professor. I succeeded in this challenge but was still given a B in the class. I was so infuriated by this incident that I refused to take credit for the course, and given the circumstances of what happened the university allowed this and also permitted me to take the next class anyway. I later got a letter of apology from the president of the university. The professor himself never apologized but only indirectly sent me this message via the university president: "Share your success with the other students." I don't know what that was supposed to mean.

In another case, I just got an A- instead of an A. The grade was my fault. This was in a general topology course which bored me to tears and spent all its time on pathological examples which I hated (though the teacher always insisted that he hated them too and that he tried to avoid him). There were no tests, only homework sets and a final presentation. The homework problems universally dealt with weird pathological examples--I repeat I hate this stuff, so I just was not motivated to do all the homework well. Hence an A-.

General_Sax

Aren't you a freshman?

Ryker

Second degree, work experience

chiro

I agree with mathwonk and others on the premise that the vast majority of students who lose marks do so because they can't show a level of understanding required to get the high marks.

I think it was Feynmann who came up with the idea of fragile knowledge (he may not have invented but he brought it up and went into depth with students about it).

I think Feynmanns point is an important one. A lot of us can go through uni or other tertiary studies having more fragile than non-fragile knowledge.

For most of us it takes a lot of practice, time, and hard work to see something in a way that isn't just a collection of things, but a cohesive, integrated body of knowledge and most importantly understanding.

The professor has the advantage that they can see things in a way that no undergraduate could and to challenge the higher percentile, can use this to get the student to think about things outside of an amateur context.

It may not be the fairest thing in the world for a professor to do this, but in my opinion its things like this that help "patch" the fragile knowledge and lead to a better understanding of what is being taught.

f95toli

But tests do not reflect the conditions of "real life", at least not in research. The problems I work on now often takes weeks of months to solve, and if I get tired I can get up from my desk and have a cup of coffee (and/or go to the lab and do something that does not require much brain activity).
Of course I have to meet deadlines, but those rarely involve any real problem solving since the only deadlines I have now involves finishing reports, presentations etc. Moreover, I tend to have most of my "eureka" moments when I am NOT sitting at my desk (usually when doing the dishes or something similar).
Hence, it is perfectly possible to have been bad at taking tests (as in "solve 5 problems in 4 hours") and still end up being a good researcher. This is one reason why I thing grades based on a combination of projects, hand-in assignments and written exams are more likely to reflect how much someone has learned from a course than a single exam alone.

Ryker

Alright, I don't have any research experience, so perhaps you're right about that. But how many people amongst those that graduate or take university courses do research? My point is you just can't treat tests as a beast completely different to what happens in real life, and fool yourself into thinking that you're just bad at test taking. I mean, sure, like I said, you can be "bad at it" and still succeed in life, but being bad at test taking, at least in my opinion, doesn't just signify being bad at test taking, but unfortunately accounts for a lot more. Even though you're not going to replicate the test environment, what I've found is you'll still be in similar ones over and over and over ... Depends on the job, too, to what degree that will be true, of course, but I think any job that is suited so as to enable you to further your career and take on increasing responsibility will be like that.
Like I said in my previous post, I'm not disputing that. I agree on this, as well.