General Discussion Thread

[Sigrid Marie]

Wow!  You have a real gift for capturing visuals and moods!

It reminds me of when I went off to college in the northeastern U.S., where it snows in the winter (after having lived in warm climates till then).  I was astonished by how beautiful freshly fallen snow is.  And in particular, how *bright* it is at night with snow on the ground.

Eeee, thank you! Yeah, I'm always surprised by how bright it is outside in the winter at night (when we actually have snow, that is)

[Oskutin]

Changed my avatar.

Should make more square version at some point

[Deirdre]

Yay, I finally got back my laptop, meaning I can do more than up-voting Disqus comments. Story time it is, then.
My little cousins (5, 7 and 10 years old) don’t exactly hate me, I guess, but tend to treat me like a member of some alien spices.
Because of reasons, I babysat them Monday night (meaning of course the night after the reveal of the well-known ceiling troll in SSSS, which generally caused an interesting day for me, full of ceiling-peering). And they decided to play a prank on me. The timeless water-bucket door prank.
In the middle of the night.
After turning the electricity off.
Using home-made fake blood instead of water (someone must have let those changelings watch Carrie).
Full bucket of it.
What a funny coincidence.
Still, at least there is a chance they were less amused than scared of the noise I made, as it was definitely not human.

[Eich]

Yay, I finally got back my laptop, meaning I can do more than up-voting Disqus comments. Story time it is, then.
My little cousins (5, 7 and 10 years old) don’t exactly hate me, I guess, but tend to treat me like a member of some alien spices.
Because of reasons, I babysat them Monday night (meaning of course the night after the reveal of the well-known ceiling troll in SSSS, which generally caused an interesting day for me, full of ceiling-peering). And they decided to play a prank on me. The timeless water-bucket door prank.
In the middle of the night.
After turning the electricity off.
Using home-made fake blood instead of water (someone must have let those changelings watch Carrie).
Full bucket of it.
What a funny coincidence.
Still, at least there is a chance they were less amused than scared of the noise I made, as it was definitely not human.?

D: 
I hope you at least didn't go Carrie on them... but they should be grounded for several months, at least.
What a crappy thing to do...

[Deirdre]

I hope you at least didn't go Carrie on them...

Nonono, I'd never do that. Not that kind of personality, and, more importantly, no skills.
Though now I think maybe I should have tried.

[Eich]

Got a 58 on my test from Monday.  Thankfully, that's a C, not an F (though 17 kids did get F's).  The teacher knows he grades horribly, so he makes the grading scale huge to compensate.  An A is normally from 93-100, but for this guy it's from 80-100... and he only had two A's last semester.  o_o  What bothers me is that he used problems that we had never looked at before.  One problem was worth 40% of the score, and we hadn't even seen it before.  The one guy who did the example problems from the book when studying had seen it, and he was the only person who got an A. 
/rant
Just finished up test number two, and now I've gotta keep writing my lab report, and then I have to do technical writing things for Friday...  Long week is almost over!

[FinnishViking]

Got a 58 on my test from Monday.  Thankfully, that's a C, not an F (though 17 kids did get F's).  The teacher knows he grades horribly, so he makes the grading scale huge to compensate.  An A is normally from 93-100, but for this guy it's from 80-100... and he only had two A's last semester.  o_o  What bothers me is that he used problems that we had never looked at before.  One problem was worth 40% of the score, and we hadn't even seen it before.  The one guy who did the example problems from the book when studying had seen it, and he was the only person who got an A. 
/rant
Just finished up test number two, and now I've gotta keep writing my lab report, and then I have to do technical writing things for Friday...  Long week is almost over!

Would it make any sense to grade it with perhaps top 10% get A, next 20% get B's etc.

That is how we do it for the graduate tests in here so you will always have people with A's, but only the best of the best can achieve it.

[Sigrid Marie]

Got a 58 on my test from Monday.  Thankfully, that's a C, not an F (though 17 kids did get F's).  The teacher knows he grades horribly, so he makes the grading scale huge to compensate.  An A is normally from 93-100, but for this guy it's from 80-100... and he only had two A's last semester.  o_o  What bothers me is that he used problems that we had never looked at before.  One problem was worth 40% of the score, and we hadn't even seen it before.  The one guy who did the example problems from the book when studying had seen it, and he was the only person who got an A. 
/rant
Just finished up test number two, and now I've gotta keep writing my lab report, and then I have to do technical writing things for Friday...  Long week is almost over!

But... aren't the example problems based on what you've learned earlier? We could get problems from the examples in the book at any time, and the teacher would expect us to be able to do it even if we had never seen that exact problem before, because there's nothing in the examples that hasn't already been explained elsewhere. (Maybe your books are different, though. I don't even know which subject it is we are talking about here cx) Either way, the fact remains that if as much as 17 kids failed even with an adjusted grading scale, your teacher is obviously doing something wrong.

[Nimphy]

One problem was worth 40% of the score, and we hadn't even seen it before.  The one guy who did the example problems from the book when studying had seen it, and he was the only person who got an A. 

...You mean... You mean we are supposed to see and learn stuff before we are asked about it on a test?! My my, now that's shocking! 

I feel for you Eich. *hugs* But you're a bright guy, so I know you'll make up.

PS: What happened to D and E? Poor alphabet!

[Fimbulvarg]

Would it make any sense to grade it with perhaps top 10% get A, next 20% get B's etc.

That is how we do it for the graduate tests in here so you will always have people with A's, but only the best of the best can achieve it.

Gaussian distributions are not really popular in Universities because they imply that your grades can be dragged down by the fact that someone else did slightly better even though you made an outstanding effort. The current philosophy, at least in Norway, is that there are objective criteria for a grade. So if, as happened with my ecology and oceonography class, half the class turns out to be scrubs then half the class will get bad grades  - and vice versa if the class is on average very clever. Then again the Norwegian universities have a large system of external censors who do the grading, a teacher would never be allowed to do that.

I've heard something about A and Bs being extremely common in American academia because of grade inflation in the 60s. If you got a C you risked being drafted for the Vietnam war. So the liberal-minded professors were very hesitant with giving grades C and lower and eventually a culture of grade inflation took root.

[Sunflower]

...You mean... You mean we are supposed to see and learn stuff before we are asked about it on a test?! My my, now that's shocking! 

I feel for you Eich. *hugs* But you're a bright guy, so I know you'll make up.

PS: What happened to D and E? Poor alphabet!

D's do exist in American grading systems, though they are often considered hardly better than failing (F's). 

I don't know why E's aren't a part of our grading system.  Perhaps because they're used elsewhere as E for Excellence? 

When I was in primary school (i.e. considered too young for letter or numerical grades), we were graded E for Excellent, G for Good, F for Fair, and U for Unsatisfactory.  But U.S. schools are all over the map in terms of how they grade their students.  And we like that rat's-nest of different standards, because freedom.   

[Piney]

D's do exist in American grading systems, though they are often considered hardly better than failing (F's). 

I don't know why E's aren't a part of our grading system.  Perhaps because they're used elsewhere as E for Excellence? 

When I was in primary school (i.e. considered too young for letter or numerical grades), we were graded E for Excellent, G for Good, F for Fair, and U for Unsatisfactory.  But U.S. schools are all over the map in terms of how they grade their students.  And we like that rat's-nest of different standards, because freedom.   

Yeah, I always thought we didn't have 'E's in our grading system because it meant top marks in elementary school. My elementary school grade system was the same as yours, with the addition of 'N' for 'Needs Improvement'.

Got a 58 on my test from Monday.  Thankfully, that's a C, not an F (though 17 kids did get F's).  The teacher knows he grades horribly, so he makes the grading scale huge to compensate.

My question is, if he knows he grades horribly, why doesn't he just... grade better?

[Silenter]

D's do exist in American grading systems, though they are often considered hardly better than failing (F's). 

I don't know why E's aren't a part of our grading system.  Perhaps because they're used elsewhere as E for Excellence? 

When I was in primary school (i.e. considered too young for letter or numerical grades), we were graded E for Excellent, G for Good, F for Fair, and U for Unsatisfactory.  But U.S. schools are all over the map in terms of how they grade their students.  And we like that rat's-nest of different standards, because freedom.   

In my school, on the report cards on those certain occasions when the school decides to use letters instead of numbers for a short period of time, there are A, B, C, and D. We have the U (Which is failing in the Letter/Conduct grading scale), but also an N (Needs Improvement). F, is of course, failing. And we do have E, S, and N, but it's for letters/conducts. Then there's NU (No credit/Audit), NL (New/Recent Admit), NS (Insufficient attendance), and P (Pass). Had to refer to the report card since they use a variety. @_@; Do any schools in America use those last 4 double letters, or is it just me? My school tends to jump around sometimes (Only sometimes. )

[OrigamiOwl]

D's do exist in American grading systems, though they are often considered hardly better than failing (F's). 

I don't know why E's aren't a part of our grading system.  Perhaps because they're used elsewhere as E for Excellence? 

When I was in primary school (i.e. considered too young for letter or numerical grades), we were graded E for Excellent, G for Good, F for Fair, and U for Unsatisfactory.  But U.S. schools are all over the map in terms of how they grade their students.  And we like that rat's-nest of different standards, because freedom.   

The year after I left high school they changed the grading system from A, B, C, t (needs improvement [always lowercase]) and Z (failed to hand anything in) to O, (outstanding) C, (competent) S, (satisfactory) and P (preliminary...? i dunno).
Now at university they give out HD, D(N), Cr, P, and PP. So now when I come home and I say "Mum I got a D! " and when my little sister comes home and she says "Mum! I got a O+! " and mum's like "ZERO PLUS WHAT?!?! D: Oh god you're both fiALING?" (although after last year she's had to accept me saying "yES MUM BECAUSE I SUck..")

Got a 58 on my test from Monday.  Thankfully, that's a C, not an F (though 17 kids did get F's).  The teacher knows he grades horribly, so he makes the grading scale huge to compensate.  An A is normally from 93-100, but for this guy it's from 80-100... and he only had two A's last semester.  o_o  What bothers me is that he used problems that we had never looked at before.  One problem was worth 40% of the score, and we hadn't even seen it before.  The one guy who did the example problems from the book when studying had seen it, and he was the only person who got an A. 
/rant
Just finished up test number two, and now I've gotta keep writing my lab report, and then I have to do technical writing things for Friday...  Long week is almost over!

Agh a 40% question?! NooooooOoooo O__O

Ah man, he sounds like my old maths teacher (who turned me off maths foreverrrrr) but worse, because he's at university level ;___; *pats Eich*
He used to put questions from the next chapter and from the extended homework in the tests (I didn't do a lot of homework, well, I did, but I didn't do EXTRA in that subject) and ask us surprise times tables/division/simple maths questions- which was fine, but I'd never learnt them (I still don't know ugh) so it was a nightmare -___-

[Eich]

But... aren't the example problems based on what you've learned earlier? We could get problems from the examples in the book at any time, and the teacher would expect us to be able to do it even if we had never seen that exact problem before, because there's nothing in the examples that hasn't already been explained elsewhere. (Maybe your books are different, though. I don't even know which subject it is we are talking about here cx) Either way, the fact remains that if as much as 17 kids failed even with an adjusted grading scale, your teacher is obviously doing something wrong.

Well, nobody had seen any of the exact problems before (except the one guy who got the A).  The important thing is knowing the concepts, which I knew most of.  He just happened to make the important problem about the subject we only briefly lighted upon.  I looked over that section of my notes, and knew the formulas, but this was a problem that introduced its own formulas.  I didn't even know where to start.  Even my ultra-super-mega-genius friend got no credit for it, because he couldn't figure it out.  The subject is fluid mechanics.  :/  The problem had us finding the relationship between the angular velocity and the change in height of the center of the surface of a fluid spinning in cylinders with different radii.

Yeah, I always thought we didn't have 'E's in our grading system because it meant top marks in elementary school. My elementary school grade system was the same as yours, with the addition of 'N' for 'Needs Improvement'.

My question is, if he knows he grades horribly, why doesn't he just... grade better?

No idea.  The thing he cares about most is that we can derive all the equations on our own, and explain why the equations are the way they are.  Does France have notoriously difficult schooling?  'Cause he's French...