Do you get your tests back in College ?

[tennisball80]

Just wondeing, after you done writing a test, do the professors actually give you back the test ?

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[Narmerguy]

Usually it'll depend on the professor. Sometimes professors won't because they don't want copies of old tests floating around if they often reuse questions.

 

[tennisball80]

Usually it'll depend on the professor. Sometimes professors won't because they don't want copies of old tests floating around if they often reuse questions.

How do you know your test mark then ?

 

[HurricaneKatt]

How do you know your test mark then ?

A lot of professors will post it online. Most do actually.

 

[DrYoda]

How do you know your test mark then ?

If they don't make the test available you can usually go to their office hours and look at it.

 

[Thrombomodulin]

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[tennisball80]

My professors will allow us to keep the test, however, we turn in the scantron (small sheet with 100 or so bubbles, similar to the ACT). The answer key is posted online (in my case, blackboard). That way, we are able to see the questions we missed, along with the correct answers.

Edit: I work the problems on the actual test and then transfer the answers to the scantron, that way I have all of my work to look back at later on.

Curiously, if you don't mind asking, what do you do with written section ?

Do you have written section for bio, chem or physics ?

 

[Thrombomodulin]

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[Dr Lyss]

Having writing can vary depending on your teacher and the size of your class. In my school the lower level electives were usually large lectures so we almost always had multiple choice tests (except bio I had a few short essays), but at my friend's school he had much smaller classes and his science exams would include some essays or short answers.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Curiously, if you don't mind asking, what do you do with written section ?

Do you have written section for bio, chem or physics ?

Every class I took in college except one had tests with essay and/or short answer portions on them, science classes included. You just wrote on the exam and turned it in. Nothing special. We usually either got our tests back or had the opportunity to look at them during the prof's office hours.

 

[RySerr21]

No, Biology/Chemistry is all multiple choice, no writing section. I have not taken physics yet. These are the lower level courses (General Chemistry I and II, Organic Chemistry I and II, Introductory Biology).

Having writing can vary depending on your teacher and the size of your class. In my school the lower level electives were usually large lectures so we almost always had multiple choice tests (except bio I had a few short essays), but at my friend's school he had much smaller classes and his science exams would include some essays or short answers.

It seems weird to have courses like general chemistry and biology that are ALL multiple choice. And Ochem? How do you make an all mutliple-choice ochem exam? That seems crazy to me. Most of our ochem tests were writing out step-by-step mechanisms and including reagents and things like that. I dunno how you would do that for a multiple choice test, and if there were questions like that they have to be way easier than formulating the mechanism by yourself.

I can second the "small school" test format. I go to a small liberal arts college...my largest class has been the intro classes and the class count never is aboe 30-35 students.. I dont even think scan trons exist on this campus. Each professor prints out a test and you write on it and turn it back in. FOr the most part the tests are given back (unless its a final). All the pre req couress and every upper division course has been a combination of multiple choice, T/F, short answer, and essay. Especially in the couress that require mathematical calculations. I had a physics test that was worth 120 points...it was four questions all requiring you show your work and calculations, etc.

I guess I can understand if you have a class of 300 students that you dont want to grade short answers and essays tho.

 

[tennisball80]

It seems weird to have courses like general chemistry and biology that are ALL multiple choice. And Ochem? How do you make an all mutliple-choice ochem exam? That seems crazy to me. Most of our ochem tests were writing out step-by-step mechanisms and including reagents and things like that. I dunno how you would do that for a multiple choice test, and if there were questions like that they have to be way easier than formulating the mechanism by yourself.

I can second the "small school" test format. I go to a small liberal arts college...my largest class has been the intro classes and the class count never is aboe 30-35 students.. I dont even think scan trons exist on this campus. Each professor prints out a test and you write on it and turn it back in. FOr the most part the tests are given back (unless its a final). All the pre req couress and every upper division course has been a combination of multiple choice, T/F, short answer, and essay. Especially in the couress that require mathematical calculations. I had a physics test that was worth 120 points...it was four questions all requiring you show your work and calculations, etc.

I guess I can understand if you have a class of 300 students that you dont want to grade short answers and essays tho.

Are you saying the bigger universities tend to use scantron sheets while the smaller universities tend not ?

 

[135892]

Are you saying the bigger universities tend to use scantron sheets while the smaller universities tend not ?

I go to one of the largest universities, and ALL of my tests in my introductory science courses were multiple choice. We had smaller quizzes and such in some discussion classes that were short answer, but for the tests... no short answer. Personally though, it wasn't all too bad, and some ways I preferred it this way.

 

[RySerr21]

Are you saying the bigger universities tend to use scantron sheets while the smaller universities tend not ?

Well I dont know much about big universities. I was just going off of what another person said about large class sizes and scan trons.

I was just saying that it makes sense. If you have a biology class with 30 students in it, its a lot more doable to make a paper test with short answer, essay, etc. etc. that the professor can grade. If you go to a larger college with courses that have hundreds of students, making that type of test becomse less practical and scan tron multiple choice tests probably work best.

I can only speak of my experience at my college (which only has 1800 students) and from my friends who aslo go to small schools......... I have never seen nor heard of a professor using a scan tron for a test in ANY class, science or non-science.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I went to UNC which is definitely not a small school. Very few of my tests were done on scantrons, as you might infer from my earlier comment about essay and short answer tests. Some of my classes had several hundred people in them. It just took a little while to get tests back.

 

[JJMrK]

I go to a large public university with more than 20k enrolled students. Here, most introductory classes are multiple choice, as one section can have 300 students in it. If it's an introductory biology class, the tests will most likely not be given back. Intro chem and physics may return tests, as they are usually more problem-solving based (read: easy to design new questions for next semester's section).

O-chem, upper division bio classes, and possibly second semester physics will be smaller and the professors are more likely to use fill in the blank/short answer/essay type tests, or simply tests with problems, but they'll look at your work. Most of the time you'll get these tests back.

GE classes will vary depending on the TA/professor. Many liberal arts classes will have in-class essays, but they're really just as likely to do standard multiple choice on a scantron. Again, the probability of the test being fill in/essay is related to the number of students in the class.

 

[Thrombomodulin]

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[tennisball80]

That was a mistake on my part. It was a rough day when I was typing that. Organic Chemistry is not multiple choice. I don't know why I included it in that list. I edited the post so O-Chem is no longer in the list.

It is somewhat diffferent, I agree. Most of the introductory level courses are 300-almost 400 students. To answer your question about general chemistry, our second test had a problem similar to this:

You dissolve 47.8 milligrams of AgNO2 (molar mass = 153.9 g/mol) in water to make 10.00 ml of solution. You then take 3.00 ml of that stock solution and dilute it to make a new solution with a total volume of 1.00 L. What is the concentration of the Ag+ ion in the final solution?

Answer Choices A-D

This was how my AP Chemistry course in high school was, so I was very familiar with this.

However, beyond the introductory level, most of the classes are 30-50 students, and you see more essay type questions, short answer, etc. I am at a large public university in the south, if that makes a difference. (approximately 19,000 undergraduate/graduate level students).

Most of the liberal arts courses will have a combination MC, T/F, short answer, essay.

Hope this makes more sense!

ya thanks for clearfying the things

 

[Thrombomodulin]

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[Caesar]

I have gotten to at least SEE all of my tests. Writing professors make copies of the tests for my english work that they keep on file. Some do that, others don't.

My organic did have some multiple choice on it, but has a lot more of writing than that. Physics also had a couple MC questions but was mostly problems.

So far my Biochem has been a mix of MC and writing as well.

We DO get our tests back in my department.

 

[iGolf]

Whether it's multiple choice, essay, short answer, matching, true/false, what does it matter? They are going to tell you your test score, and 99% of the time you will be able to find a way to see the test.

All of my professors have handed us back the tests, and some of them just come around and collect them again before class is over so we have time to look at them.