Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Cheaters, Bricks and other Banes

I want to write a real post about my garden, but I must make a general reminder to the whole world: adult humans have more than 10 cells; staying late at a practical and writing down exactly what the professor writes as she makes the key is both silly and unethical (some call it "cheating"); when there are over 780 points in the class (and you have already been given points for turning in your pre-test, post-test, knowing that birds have feathers and showing the last day of class) an 88.5 is not all that close to an A and I won't give it to you; if you write a project proposal saying that you are going to write a "lengthy paper" and compare 3 things, it shouldn't be three pages comparing two things; and, last but not least, ZEBRAS are not well adapted to the tundra lifestyle, despite what a student apparently thinks.

6 comments:

Jennifer said...

See, this is all the fun you miss when you have to give multiple choice exams. And I just don't get funny answers in biostats. Wow, blatant cheating. What a crappy way to end things.

Cathy said...

Lisa,
Thanks for making me laugh out loud. I read this message to some colleagues at Center for Teaching Excellence and we all cracked up. By the way, I had a 150 student tell me (on an exam) that we should sterilize our feet with chlorine to get rid of fungi because they are a species of bacteria. Sigh.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

The tundra particularly amused me because the student had correctly identified it on a map and had written two correct traits on it "cold" and "low vegetation" or something, then just added, "with many unique creatures like zebras". I was far more baffled (and amused) than the students who place "desert" on the Amazon or rainforest on the Sahara (S. Am and Africa really are basically the same) or the student who picked "Alaska" and "Africa" as his biomes.
You'll also be amused to learn that bats are flying reptiles.

Sparkling Squirrel said...

Today's addendum . . . hey Mr. Football coach-- calling me will not make 1.2 percentage points (out of 781 points) a mere 1.2 points that your player who never did the weekly extra credit all semester could somehow now make-up.

Jennifer said...

Oooo, that would make me soooo made.

Anonymous said...

On many levels, I'm glad that the future star (made NCAA all-regional team as a Freshman non-starter) of our women's basketball team decided to drop my class.

She missed close to 25% of classes early in the semester due to basketball games.

She missed another 25% of classes for unknown reasons.

And she didn't pay attention when she was in class.

While I really need and want more computer science majors, and I really want more female CS majors (female enrollment in CS has dropped significantly since the mid-80's), I think I'm glad not to have her, specifically.

Fortunately, I have received no pressure from any coaches yet.