I am NOT your mommy!

[Arm]

I handed in a blank exam once, but I needed the F so that I wouldn't be asked to return my GI bill money. (if you drop a class, or get an incomplete, you have to repay the GI bill money)

It was a class on advanced programming in C++... the university here doesn't offer *entry level* programming in C++... and I had a full course load besides. So after about half the semester I said well, I'd like to do well in my *other* classes and stop spending all my time on this one to get MAYBE a C if I'm lucky. Got an F and the rest A's and B's.

Still, it was wonderfully funny. I had kept going to the class throughout the semester, in the hopes of learning at least something. I'd just stopped doing the programs. So when finals rolled around, I sat in the same place I'd always sat for every day that semester, got my final, signed my name...

...waited about 10-15 minutes for everyone to settle down, handed it in, and walked past all the stunned kids

[PepperElf]

one of my tricks for tests - especially math tests - comes from one of my high school math teachers.

as soon as the test starts, write down anything you don't want to forget on the scratch paper, like formulas etc... then you don't have to worry about trying to remember them during the test.

the other trick i learned in college (pre-calc)... i had a spare hour after class & used it to do my homework. (ended up being the only A+ for every test)


btw thanks for the heads-up, arm.

[Arm]

ah? Glad I could help then.

Always check the regs of course in case something has changed, but that was the rule a couple of years ago, anyway. Mind, I think that if I'd still had over 12 credit hours for the semester in *addition* to the incomplete, they would have let me keep the money.

But I don't think I would have had the hours; I think I was taking like 13 hours total or something.

[Chromatix]

If you don't know the answer to something, you can always guess. You might get a few marks just for effort, or you might even guess right! There are (I hope) very few subjects where they would take away marks for a wrong answer.

[Alpha Strike]

I'd piss myself laughing if the kid who turned in the blank paper misspelled his name.

So I work for a company that administers standardized tests to high school students - we only do it 6 times a year and it's obviously a big deal to the kids who take it.

We've had kids get so nervous that they:

1) Misspell their name.
2) Forget or put in the wrong date of birth.
3) Forget or put in the wrong home address.
4) Go to the wrong test center - usually either the wrong address or wrong city.
5) Throw up.
6) Faint.
7) Piss their pants.
8) Have anxiety attacks.

[Gruesome]

I have three test screw-ups in my past. Two were in the same class.

Second semester basic accounting. The big problem with the class was that the first semester class was creaded and run by a department head who had been doing the class for a decade, so it was well run and had all the bumps smoothed out. Then he quit. The guy they got to replace him for the second part of basic accounting was a graduate level PhD who hadn't dealt with underclassmen in years. That class was SUPER hard, as he expected us to be able to do some of the same crap the grad students could do. Thus test number 1....

It looked nothing like the work we had done in class. And the answer to question 1 was needed to start question 2, and so on through the test (maybe 6 questions total.) So if you screw the pooch on Q1, you are dooooooomed. I saw people CRYING in thre, and I was almost one of them. I think I got a 20-something on that one.

The second test was all my fault. I collect all my syllabus info at the start of the semester, write it all down in my day planner, and refer to my day planner from there on out. Only when I arrived to take test 2 on the appropriate Thursday, there was a play of Taming of the Shrew in the auditorium. Doh! The test had been on Tuesday, and as I found out the next morning, the last-chance make-up test had been Wednesday. Too bad, so sad, see you next semester.

The third was computer science final. I don't know how I screwed it up, but I got the time all wrong. When I called some classmates to see if they wanted to walk there together, they asked me why I hadn't been at the test 3 hours ago. Doh! I hauled ass down there and caught the course coordinators grading papers and they let me sit there and take it, with the warning that "If we finish grading, you are finished with the test." Fortunately I knew my stuff and did well, but that was close.

I did some begging in there, but never lost sight of the fact that I screwed up. I learned in high school that you lose an argument with a teacher the moment you start it.

[MTNLaurelPoacher]

The person who turned the test in with only his/her name must not have listened much. A 0 on a final grade even with an A+ average in the rest of the class is going to do some SERIOUS damage to your grade.

Thanks for showing up. See you again next year.

[sanchopanza65]

My general policy when it comes to college classes is that the teacher is always right, even when they are wrong. But really, forgetting where your final is is not really a legitimate excuse, especially when you've told them every day for the past two weeks. I may not be the most responsible student in the world, but I'll write down dates, times, and occasionally places. (Usually the finals are in the same building and/or room as the class). If I don't know where the building is, I'll find it ahead of time. For example, just last night, I found out my Japanese final is in the only off-campus classroom building, and I didn't know where it was, so I drove around till I found it. It ain't that hard to do these things, and I go to an absolutely huge school.

On another note, the only quiz I ever turned in blank was a Japanese vocab quiz that was given the day after the presidential election. Seeing as I am a political science major, I think that's a somewhat legitimate excuse.

[LadyAndreca]

I missed a final just this week. But it really was out of my control.

The final for chorus is always the end-of-semester concert. That was supposed to be on Tuesday. But half an hour before the robing call, the power went out...to half the county. Within ten minutes, the school had shut down and cancelled all classes and events for the night.

I checked my e-mail that night, but there was nothing about a reschedule. So I checked again Wednesday when I got up, around 10 AM. Nada. DIdn't check again until Wednesday night when I went to bed...to find out that at 10:30 AM an e-mail had gone out saying the concert was that night.

Luckily the professor was really cool about it. I wasn't the only one who either didn't get the message or couldn't get out of work or another final. But it freaked me out pretty bad until I realized that it was choir--I could retake it very easily if I had to.

[tigerlily0]

If you don't know the answer to something, you can always guess. You might get a few marks just for effort, or you might even guess right!

That happened to me in high school, on my physics AP exam. I got one question and had no idea what the answer was. I knew what formula I was supposed to use on that type of question, so I just put down the formula and hoped I'd get at least partial credit. And it turned out it was 100% right! The formula gave the exact answer they were looking for.

[Hyndis]

My friend, saint that she is, dragged my hyperventilating self to the professor. He was really, really nice and let me take the exam in the last section he had that week. It probably helped that I showed up to every lecture, sat in the front, visited his office hours, and showed up during the latter part of the exam.

It certainly did help!

Generally if you actually show up for class, participate, use office hours, and overall actively try to improve yourself and your grade, the professor will bend the rules for you.

If you're one of those people who showed up the first day, missed the entire semester, then shows up on the final wanting an exception, tough luck.

[Buglady]

The person who turned the test in with only his/her name must not have listened much. A 0 on a final grade even with an A+ average in the rest of the class is going to do some SERIOUS damage to your grade.

Thanks for showing up. See you again next year.

Well, not necessarily. If you go in to a final that is worth 30% and you have 90% on the term stuff, you still get 63% in the course even if you only write your name. If you get 50% on the final, your term grade is 78%, which is actually not too bad.

No, the 63 isn't a fantastic grade, but going in to an exam knowing that you CANNOT fail the course no matter how badly you screw up the test can be a huge relief. After that you can tackle the exam in a better frame of mind and do uch better than the 63. But if all you need is to pass - it's OK.

At least, that's how I approach it. I have to play mind games with myself sometimes to get around the anxiety disorders that otherwise screw me up badly.

(I must be a masochist; I have ADHD and severe anxiety, with occasional flameouts and falls into depression. Yet I keep going back to university....)

[K'Z'K]

A co-worker recently told me about a student who wanted credit for a question she did not answer, on the grounds that "no one else got it either." She apparently truly did not understand why the answer was NO.

My biggest test mishap was the time I completely failed to answer an essay question in Embryology. I started out OK, but quickly got on a tangent and pretty much explained everything from the class *except* what I had been asked for. Fortunately, everything I wrote--complete with three-color drawings--was correct, and the prof gave me full credit.

-K'Z'K

[Buglady]

My biggest test mishap was the time I completely failed to answer an essay question in Embryology. I started out OK, but quickly got on a tangent and pretty much explained everything from the class *except* what I had been asked for.

This would be why I read through all tests twice before I start writing. And I underline the key parts of each question.

Like I said, I have to try and outsmart myself sometimes...

[aurelemsrealm]

The following should be common sense, but we all know how uncommon common sense can be. Two pieces of advice on finding any information in general as a college student -- ask a teacher or search the school's website for the information. Two weeks before finals this semester, I had already searched for a final exams schedule and started pestering my instructors for confirmation of date, time, and place.