Tests

[oilidigigoat]

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So I just want to vent. I am currently taking Genetics. I do all my homework go to every lecture and even sit in the front row. And I am getting really frustrated by the tests our professor give us. There are always at leaset two problems on the test that we have never seen or discussed before (worth about 15 points each), our last test average was a 40. So the class isn't curved and its becoming impossible to get an A. Which brings me to my next point, how obcessed with grades I have become now that I'm back in school (post-bac.) taking pre-reqs. Its enought to drive someone crazy!

Has anyone else taking a class where they get all the info...then get test questions that make them want to scream? Any class out there that was impossible to get an A in?

 

[Minnerbelle]

Has anyone else taking a class where they get all the info...then get test questions that make them want to scream? Any class out there that was impossible to get an A in?

My writing professor said during the first class that everyone should take the class pass/fail because they WILL get a bad grade. He says he's only given 2 A's in his ENTIRE TEACHING CAREER (which is pretty extensive). GAAAAHHHH I was like... well thanks for f*cking that up for me douche. I need to take this course for a grade it's a freaking pre-req.

 

[PicklePie]

One of the professors at my school is notoriously difficult. It's not that he puts questions on the test that are impossible to know from lecture or the text, it's that the volume of information and level of detail he expects is obscene. At the start of each semester he announces to the class that he does not expect a lot of As, maybe four at the most, so students should not feel too bad if they get a B or C. I had him for vertebrate physiology last year and spent most of the year on the borderline. I had a very slight A, so any assignment had the potential to drag me down to a B. It was awful, he didn't offer a single point of extra credit so there was no way to get a buffer.

 

[oilidigigoat]

I already feel better reading your stories. Sometimes I wonder if really brilliant professors have a hard time relating to us who aren't masters of their subject.

 

[PicklePie]

I think they don't always remember being in our shoes. One of my current professors assumes that the class just sort of knows things. It's incredibly frustrating to deal with him. When we had an exam coming up, he gave us three huge packets of multiple choice problems to study with as sort of a guide. We came back with a ton of questions on it and he realized that things he assumed we all knew, had not been addressed in the text or lecture at all. Some of the questions even contradicted what we had gone over. It's lucky he found out before making the exam or the whole class would have failed.

 

[2short4life]

Are we in the same class or something...I always stay on top of my Genetics but so far the test has had problems that were never covered in the book. Right now I'm looking at a B+/B/B- but the class average on exams is 50%-60%.

 

[Trilt]

I already feel better reading your stories. Sometimes I wonder if really brilliant professors have a hard time relating to us who aren't masters of their subject.

soooo true. It is also really frustrating in my genetics course because he keeps assuming everybody has taken biochem and not explaining things.... what? It's a sophomore/junior class. If you've already taken biochem, you're seriously out of the general order of business and probably taking genetics uber late.

He's also a statistician, so we're all magically supposed to memorize formulas in the blink of an eye, and they don't need to be explained. ...😱

 

[Armymutt25A]

I had several freshman year classes where it was assumed that I knew more than I did. I came from a really small high school - 25 in my class. My biology class at Purdue had more people in the lab. I was in there with people who had had anatomy and advanced biology in high school - the most in depth we got was dissecting a frog my freshman year. My GPA was in the toilet that year. I spent the better part of four years playing catch up, while at the same time learning new material. Ag classes were fun too - I think there were three of us who hadn't grown up on farms. Rather embarrassing being the only one in the class who didn't know what the Chicago Board of Trade was.

 

[rileyroo]

my biochem class...the professor is impossible.