POLL: Low Test scores....does this reflect poorly on the instructor or the students..

[krunchykrome]

So, I took my first Statistic Exam last week. I studied like crazy for this exam. Well, I go in to class and take the test and I finish very dissapointed and worried about my performance. Everybody in the class said they felt well prepared for the exam but when it came around, it was not built in the same fashion they studied for.

This teacher is ridiculous. He has a thick Korean accent so you can barely understand him. He gets side tracked and starts giving these ridiculous analogies that throw everyone off from the real chapter material. And sometimes he will go on for 30 minutes about something and someone will ask "where is this in the book" only to hear his response saying "It's not in the book, it wont be on the test...etc."

Oh yea, when he calls roll, he won't say your first name or your last name. Instead, he says the first 3 letters of your last name. "HIN, EDR.....etc" And everyone misses their name and roll goes on for half of the class.
He also assigns homework and he says that he only wants our last name in the top right hand corner of the paper; if anyone puts their first name anywhere on the paper, the most we can get is 50%.

So anyways, this first test. We passes the tests back and everybody is bitching and ranting already...I know this cant be good. Then he hands me mine and says "Best Grade in the Class." Im expecting an A or something......It's a 74%!!!!
That was the highest score in the class of maybe 20 students.

Does this reflect poorly on the instructor or the students.

I say the teacher is an a-hole.

 

[dighn]

He also assignes homework and he says that he only wants our last name in the top right hand corner of the paper; if anyone puts their first name anywhere on the paper, the most we can get is 50%.

that's such bullshlt if true

 

[StageLeft]

Sounds like a sh*t teacher. I had a teacher once who refused to give a 100% on anything because he said nobody is perfect, so he literally would not allow students to ace his exams. He should have been put to death for that statement.

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: dighn

He also assignes homework and he says that he only wants our last name in the top right hand corner of the paper; if anyone puts their first name anywhere on the paper, the most we can get is 50%.

that's such bullshlt if true

Oh it's true.

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Sounds like a sh*t teacher. I had a teacher once who refused to give a 100% on anything because he said nobody is perfect, so he literally would not allow students to ace his exams. He should have been put to death for that statement.

Now thats bull-sh*t.

 

[bigalt]

I had a few classes in college where the professors wrote the tests so the average would be 50-60%. I kind of like the idea-- what's the point of giving the flunkers more room to shine, rather than the exceptional students?

 

[edmicman]

what if two people have the same last name?

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: edmicman
what if two people have the same last name?

It happens everyday. And it takes 5 minutes to clear up.

 

[SP33Demon]

Let me guess, this isn't a multiple choice test. Teachers like this piss me off b/c they have an ego problem, and everything has to end up getting curved anyway. They want the reputation as a ballbuster b/c they have a superiority complex and think they're better than everyone, and that no matter how hard you study you still won't get it right, only he/she can. Overall BS. Mult. choice test teachers don't have this problem (in most cases).

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Let me guess, this isn't a multiple choice test. Teachers like this piss me off b/c they have an ego problem, and everything has to end up getting curved anyway. They want the reputation as a ballbuster b/c they have a superiority complex and think they're better than everyone, and that no matter how hard you study you still won't get it right, only he/she can. Overall BS. Mult. choice test teachers don't have this problem (in most cases).

Actually, half of the test was multiple choice.
And we were allowed to use 1 page of notes.

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: krunchykrome

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Let me guess, this isn't a multiple choice test. Teachers like this piss me off b/c they have an ego problem, and everything has to end up getting curved anyway. They want the reputation as a ballbuster b/c they have a superiority complex and think they're better than everyone, and that no matter how hard you study you still won't get it right, only he/she can. Overall BS. Mult. choice test teachers don't have this problem (in most cases).

Actually, half of the test was multiple choice.
And we were allowed to use 1 page of notes.

And how did you do on the mult choice part vs the essay?

 

[DuffmanOhYeah]

Its his rules. You have to play by them. Bitch if you want, but that wont get you a good grade.

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon

Originally posted by: krunchykrome

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Let me guess, this isn't a multiple choice test. Teachers like this piss me off b/c they have an ego problem, and everything has to end up getting curved anyway. They want the reputation as a ballbuster b/c they have a superiority complex and think they're better than everyone, and that no matter how hard you study you still won't get it right, only he/she can. Overall BS. Mult. choice test teachers don't have this problem (in most cases).

Actually, half of the test was multiple choice.
And we were allowed to use 1 page of notes.

And how did you do on the mult choice part vs the essay?

I did about the same.
We all had a full page of notes, and the highest grade was still a 74%.

 

[ucdnam]

Hey, the class will be over at the end of the semester and hopefully you won't have to take any of his classes again. Remember to give him bad marks when it's time to fill out a survey.

Hopefully your class is curved

 

[hdeck]

go to the dean

 

[seepy83]

this is what you're in college to learn...how to deal with different situations. personally, i think the most important thing you learn in college is adaptive skills...how you should approach a situation that you are unused to and unfamiliar with.

now, as far as tests where you class averages around a 60...i've had many exams like that. in fact the statistics class i'm taking right now is worse then that. highest grade was a 68, average was a 41. maybe you're taking a stats class that's outside of your major...so the following wouldnt apply, but everyone in my class is business majors and the class is statistics in economics. the explaination our professor gave us is that the best way to distinguish good students from exceptional ones is to make an extremely difficult test...that way she knows which students she should try to talk to about grad school.

tough it out man, you'll be alright in the end. just dont get consumed in the whole "my whole class cant stand this professor, so i'm gonna have a horrible semester in this class" mindset. do what you can to adapt to this guy...the peers in your class might think you're a dork for doin it, but so what. people that can do it are the ones that will succeed. survival of the fittest (in an intellectual sense).

 

[AFB]

Both

 

[Zenmervolt]

It depends. We really need to see grade distributions from his past classes. We would also need to track the students to see if performance in his class was on par with their performance in other similar classes.

ZV

 

[LivinLaVivaPollo]

I think it depends more on the professor than the students, but that's just from my personal experience and the fact that I like to think nothing is my fault.

I took a stochastic analysis course last quarter, with an American bashing France jingoistic butt nugget of a professor. The engineering department here has started to implement upper division weeding out courses, and the class I took was in the mix of it all.

First midterm, avg score was 12/20, highest was 20/20
Second midterm, avg score was 3/20, highest was 12/20
Third midterm, avg score was 2/20, highest was 8/20

75% fail rate. Nothing happened to the professor though because he had tenure and held many connections to silicon valley, ie. he could bring research money.

As a comparison, only 20% failed the class Spring quarter of 2003, when another professor taught it.

 

[PowerMacG5]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Sounds like a sh*t teacher. I had a teacher once who refused to give a 100% on anything because he said nobody is perfect, so he literally would not allow students to ace his exams. He should have been put to death for that statement.

My ninth grade biology teacher was like this. I got a 100% on every test, lab, and participated everyday. He would only give me a 99 on my report card. Also my Introduction to Computer Science class (probably the easiest class I ever took in high school) would not give me a 100 average even if everything I did in class was 100. I thought that to be bullshit, and to this day still do.

 

[WhiteKnight]

I don't think that a 74 as the highest grade is unreasonable at all. It shows that everyone got challenged. If even one person gets a 100, that person's potential hasn't really been tested (not that I'm saying 100s should be disallowed). I think that having an average around 50 is perfectly reasonable though.

 

[ghostman]

Does he grade on a curve? If so, then a low score isn't bad at all, as long as you do better than your classmates. I actually prefer if the test was hard if there is a curve. Everyone having grades of 90+ will make it hard to determine who actually knows what the material and who just got lucky. It also means a careless mistake could give you the worst score in the class.

Of course, if the teacher was expecting everyone to get high grades, then it reflects poorly on the teacher. My microecon teacher's midterm was 10 multiple choice questions with a penalty for getting answers wrong. Even without the penalty, the average was about 5. There were students with negative scores!

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Your teacher is a moron. I dunno why universities hire those people who can't speak english to teach their physics and math classes. Glad I'm not an engineering major.

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Sounds like a sh*t teacher. I had a teacher once who refused to give a 100% on anything because he said nobody is perfect, so he literally would not allow students to ace his exams. He should have been put to death for that statement.

My current chemistry teacher is like that. Not only does she refuse to give 100% she really has an extremely hard time giving anyone an A. If she is grading papers and she reaches one that's an A paper she will toughen her grading so that they won't get an A and go back through all previous papers she graded and regrade them.

 

[weirdichi]

There are a lot of factors that go into determing whether it's the student or teacher's fault. I think you should talk to everybody in the class and have everybody then talk to the professor. The professor is there to teach and make you learn, and if you the majority of the class doesn't seem to be learning because of issues of communication of the material, then the teacher will have to adapt to the class. You're paying money to have the professor teach you, so I think you should have a say in how the class is being taught *IF* the whole class agrees. Of course this could go the other way also where the whole class conspires to have the professor change the class just so that everybody will get good grades.

Summary, talk to the class and if they feel the same way as you, talk to the professor about how to communicate to the class so that the majority of the class will understand.