Testing No. 2 pencils and scantron exams

I always use a mechanical pencil on scantrons and I have had no problems.

 

Same with me.

I don't think I have ever used a normal pencil on those scantrons. Although, I like normal pencils much better than the clicky ones for some reason.

 

I think its just their way of saying "Don't use a pen".

 

Yep. They just don't want you writing your answers with a No. 4 pencil or worse.

I've used mechanical pencils on scantrons in the past with no problems.

 

I think that mechanical pencils and regular pencils are equivalent if they have the same graphite type.

 

A #2 pencil is HB. It refers to the grade -- hardness or softness -- of the lead: #1 = B, #2 = HB, #3 = H, and #4 = 2H, where you can think of H as Hard and B as... umm... not hard... lol, don't know what that one stands for. Many drafting pencils are made for use by drawers/sketchers who need different size and hardness lead.

Also, if you do lots of math, I would recommend trying a 0.3 mm pencil.

 

The B stands for blackness.

Ya learn somethin' new every day...
(You guys are lucky that this thread isn't in GD, because I would be all over those jokes. )

 

Yep, you can do a scantron exam with a mechanical pencil with HB lead. Back when I was a TA, we started mentioning that in our instructions because we got asked it often. But you still aren't allowed to fold, spindle or mutilate your exam form (I also learned what spindling was because being a smart-a$$ TA, I wanted to know what it was if I was going to tell them not to do it...that's when you stick the receipts on a big spike...I guess that means you shouldn't leave hanging chads on your scantron. :rofl:) I have never found a quick solution for the student who erases too many times and too hard until they rip a hole through the middle of the scantron...bring a good, soft eraser!

 

I love mechanical pencils but a good point was made in a book titled " Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT", that regular pencils have blunt tips that will require less time to fill in a scantron bubble. Perhaps true? Just thought I would throw that out and let your know that you're not the only person who worried excessively ( ok maybe only I did) on whether my exam would cause a system meltdown because I used a mechanical pencil.

 

If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?

 

I used a #3 pencil before as a test and found that I only had to press harder to make the pencil marks darker, but the machine still picked it up.

 

The reason you don't use a #1 pencil is because it is so soft that so much lead comes off so easily that you could never fully erase it, and if you tried you would probably smudge a good portion of the test.

 

A #1 pencil is that fat kind the kindergarteners use when learning to write letters. The marks it makes might be a bit too fat to fit in the bubbles.

I'm confused...they give you the scantron forms before the exam? And then you have to somehow transport them to the exam yourself? They don't just hand them out with the exam? That seems really odd. And yes, some of those older scantron readers are incredibly fussy when it comes to any sort of bend or stray mark on the form or not coloring inside the lines, or erasing cleanly enough, or marking darkly enough (that's the real pain...if you press hard enough to make the mark dark enough, then it's really hard to erase cleanly enough to not have a stray mark...but then you wonder, if the one mark needed to be so dark, why is it able to pick up that little gray spot where I didn't quite get it erased?)

It's horrible to have to resort to scantrons, but unfortunately, with large classes, there's just no other way to give an exam that can be graded in a reasonable amount of time. You don't really want to wait a month for your grades while someone reads through 300 essay tests.