Not what I signed up for

[torquill]

I am so angry, I'm literally shaking.

One last final, right? Time to hand in the last lab report, take the test, and be done. I've already been accepted to grad school, so (as long as I pass) my eventual grade is a formality. I can do that.

I had thought the study guide for weed biology was rather sketchy, but the midterm was pretty easy, as such things go. A few little twists, but okay. I had a pretty good grasp of most things.

Then I go in there and 1) several of the questions were just like the study ones, except reversed -- i.e. they looked exactly the same if you didn't happen to catch that it said "weed" instead of "crop", or "declining" instead of "growing"... 2) I was supposed to be able to construct a population trend, without actual numbers, on a double log scale (constant vs. log is something I'm only just getting the hang of mentally translating into), and 3) he told us to create a plausible linear-algebra transition matrix (3x3), for a "declining" weed population no less, out of thin air and brain cells.

I understood all the terms involved. I understood the relevant concepts (I thought), like what all of the numbers in the matrix meant, how to apply it, and so on... I could answer questions (even vague ones) like "What makes a weed more invasive in a disturbed area?" Sure, I'll take a stab at that one. But this... this...

I wrote a couple of scathing comments about the particularly bad questions, threw a few numbers into the 3x3 matrix that didn't look too weird, made a nasty remark on the last page about the fact that the expectations we were studying under didn't cover this sort of thing, and told the TA it was a damn good thing I don't care about my class grade when I tossed my paper on his desk. I suppose I should be grateful that Marcel himself was nowhere to be found, because I would have been very, very tempted to drag him into the hall and make a few choice remarks that might have further damaged my grade.

I should be happy it's over. I'm just mad.

Comments

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

That just sucks. You have every right to be mad. All I can offer is sympathy and hugs, I'm afraid.

So, when does your social life return to some semblance of normality?

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

No idea. Normality doesn't seem to be on the horizon for a bit.

Time I may have, but it's unpredictable and difficult to plan. Part of that is the inevitable exhaustion; I have no idea how much I'll be on my feet for the next week. That's compounded by my surgery on the 20th. When I've recovered from that, I'll be ready to start whipping out the calendar.

[knaveofhearts.livejournal.com]

Is this the sort of thing which could be discussed with your department head without screwing yourself for the future? You're not trying to increase your grade, you're trying to decrease the unnecessary 'trickiness' and bullshit.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

Given that it doesn't matter to my academic standing... it's not worth going up the chain. Marcel has tenure, he's extremely respected in his field, and the fact that he can't write an exam is probably the least of anyone's worries. I trust that the comments I scribbled on the exam may serve as notice that he really didn't do well this time around. (If not the average score, which will probably be reasonably low.)

The last time I got that angry over an exam, it was my ochem teacher, and the average score made her realize that it was a bad one -- I think she gave us all ten bonus points and apologized the next week. It happens.

[semy-of-pearls.livejournal.com]

Wha?

Who wrote the test? Surely not the TA...

Argh.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

No, that one was so effed up it had to be Marcel. The TA is a great deal more realistic, generally.

[amanda-nye.livejournal.com]

I hiss in teacher's general direction

[tiggerypum.livejournal.com]

**hugs** That really sucks.