Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Not enough time

Here is a portion of an e-mail I received last week...

"I am writing to you to express my concern with the lecture final. I understood to have two hours to complete the lecture final. It was 50 minutes into the exam that I was told I only had one hour to complete it. I answered questions to meet the time constraint versus having adequate time to think the questions through. As you know, thought was required to answer questions and 24 seconds is not sufficient to answer 150 questions. It is one thing to turn in an exam because it’s all you can do and another because of time limitations which was incorrect."

I'm upset about this for a few reasons:
  1. She completed both exams in their entirety.
  2. The questions were multiple choice. If you knew the material, then 24 seconds is plenty of time to answer each question.
  3. There really wasn't a time limit, but if she was told by my lab assistant that time was up she never mentioned it to me before she left campus that day. She came to my office immediately after finishing up the exam and not one word was said about not having enough time. Her justification for this is that she was so overwhelmed that she didn't think to ask about it. I really do not see how she could forget to ask about something as important as this, especially since it has now been the topic of several e-mails between us over the past 2 weeks.
  4. She came to review the final exam, after she found out the grade and after she had expressed some concern about not having enough time. In my office, however, she mentioned the topic, but really didn't act like it was a big deal.
  5. When given the option to take another final exam (not the same questions, but the same question type), she declined. If I was in the same situation and I was sure that I had been cheated out of enough time to complete the exam and if I knew I would do better if I were given more time, then I would definitely take this offer.

So, I guess I'm not really sure what she wants me to do. Does she just want me to give her the 2 points that will get her to a B? I can't do that, and luckily my boss backs me on it. I hope this ordeal is overwith, but for some reason I don't think it is.

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