To some extent the teacher always has something to do with your grade, but the majority of it falls on your shoulders. For example, it's her fault she took so long to report your grades for that exam, but it is also your fault for not speaking up sooner. If I don't have a test result back in 3-4 days or by the next class period (whichever is longer), I contact the teacher either by email or face to face. You don't have to be rude when you approach them, and often times it works in your favor to show them that you are concerned about your grade and would like to know how you did and what you got wrong. I sent my A&P teacher an email about a test this semester and he hadn't even realized he didn't upload them to blackboard though he finished grading them the day of the test. Within an hour of sending that email the grades were uploaded and he thanked me the next class period for letting him know.
As far as teaching easy stuff and testing hard stuff, I've found that a lot of people feel that way about their organic chem teacher. A lot of organic chem is simple concepts that are presented in very confusing ways. This is how my organic class was last semester. As always, it is the students' responsibility to learn to integrate various concepts and be prepared for any sort of question. Some teachers are nice enough to say something like "this is a simple concept that I will present in a difficult way on the exam," but not all are and they certainly aren't required to be that way.
Unlike so many students that I've known personally and via SDN, I 99% of the time take the stance that learning and performing are the student's responsibility. The teacher is there to teach, you are there to learn.
With that said, I have certainly had my share of "bad" teachers who were unclear about the material, did not get grades back promptly, and were not available for office hours or simply did not care to help you even if you asked for help. However, you can usually figure out that your teacher sucks very early on in the semester and make the decision to either drop the class or work harder on your own and seek help elsewhere (TAs, tutors, online, friends, classmates, etc).
So, I understand your frustration, but at the end of the day you are 100% responsible for your grades. You can bank on ADCOMs not caring about how awful your teacher was.
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