MHB What to do when receiving a bad grade on assignment

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The discussion centers around a user expressing disappointment over receiving a low grade of 12/24 on an assignment, despite feeling confident about their understanding of the material. They emphasize the need for change and question whether they allocated sufficient time to the assignment, while also expressing concerns about potential grading errors and unclear feedback from the marker. Participants suggest reviewing the assignment to identify mistakes, consulting with instructors or tutors for clarification, and adjusting homework strategies. They highlight the importance of breaking down difficult tasks into manageable parts and allowing time for ideas to develop. The user notes that minor details, such as missing absolute values or failing to explicitly state checks in their work, significantly impacted their score, indicating a need for greater attention to detail in future assignments.
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I got 12/24 on my assignment. I am surprised and displeased as I thought I did a good job and I felt I understood the material. I will not give up! I believe this is a sign something needs to changed. I had put a lot of time into the assignment and I don't believe it is feasible to put double the amount of time into get 24/24, my other commitments can't afford that. Is it the correct way to look at it that I didn't put enough time into it? What should my next step be? What should a long term change be? I'm going to look over the answer key and see where I went wrong.

Also I think my paper may have been graded incorrectly. I find it hard to follow, as the marker used checks, x's, and +some-number. But I think at least the marks were summed incorrectly at the end.
 
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find_the_fun said:
Also I think my paper may have been graded incorrectly. I find it hard to follow, as the marker used checks, x's, and +some-number. But I think at least the marks were summed incorrectly at the end.

Well, surely you know how to count, so you can at least verify that!

Bad grades happen, just review the material you didn't do well on, and you'll do better next time (likely the final exam for instance) :)
 
when i get a bad grade on an assignment, first i die, second i go over the assignment and see what i did wrong, third i go over those questions with the instructor or a tutor to see why i did them wrong or to make sure it was graded correctly, fourth i make sure i don't do what i did last time whether it was wasting time or doing the assignment too fast or not studying before hand.

the same thing happened to me the other day on my programming assignment but only because it think it was graded incorrectly.
 
Another possibility is to change your homework strategy. This may or may not be relevant - it's better advice for extremely difficult homework than for homework you can just sit down and do all at once without pausing, and I don't know how hard the homework is for you.

For very difficult homework, I have found that it's not the sheer amount of time you spend on it that will get it done - it's the number of fresh starts. So if you find yourself banging your head against a wall, then just stop that homework and move on to another class. Repeat this process. Of course, this presupposes that you start working on a homework set as soon as you get it! You can't wait around. It's especially valuable if you can sleep on it a few times. Your brain can sometimes solve problems in your sleep.

It's also more valuable simply to have these ideas ruminating in your head over a longer period of time. It will help with comprehension.

I agree with you: never give up!
 
The problem is the marker only put a number and didn't indicate where mistakes were made. I went to talk to the prof but he told me the answer key was online with mark breakdown and didn't even look at the assignment. I looked at the answer key, and it did show certain steps with their marks, but I'm still unclear as to where I went wrong. For example one question I got the right answer and showed work, but only got 1/5.

It seems I lost LOTS of marks to little details, such as leaving out the absolute value when integrating 1/x or no explicitly writing that I checked the trivial solution to the differential equation, and it is not a solution.
 
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