FA 101
“Grade-grubbing in the Modern University,” Fall 2009
Midterm Exam
Professor Fendrich
The following exam consists of five True or False statements. Write “T” (indicating “true”) or “F” (indicating “False”) at the end of each statement. The exam is worth 100 points. Each question is worth 20 points.
1. Grade-grubbing is a form of whining to a professor over any grade less than an “A.”
2) Grade-grubbing occurs when a student makes special nice-nice to a professor during class and follows this up, within the hour, with an email requesting an appointment to discuss a grade.
3) Grade-grubbers frequently approach a professor whose syllabus includes specific grading standards to ask “exactly how” to “get” a grade of “A.”
4) Grade-grubbing often takes the form of a student explaining to a professor why everything that’s going to happen in the future depends on the professor “giving” a grade of “A” to that student.
5) Grade-grubbing means informing a professor that everyone knows grades are subjective and meaningless but that a particular grade given by the professor is unfair and “needs” to be changed.
This is a very fine midterm exam, and adaptable to all courses in all disciplines. Most students who take it find it difficult to “get” a grade of “A.”
9 Responses to Midterm Exam in Grade-Grubbing
literarytype - October 12, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Very funny.
dank48 - October 13, 2009 at 8:06 am
T, T, T, T, T.What’s hard about that?Oh, come on, for heaven’s sake, Professor Fendrich . . . Look, you’ve always been reasonable, and I feel we’ve always connected on, you know, a deeper level than just in the, like, classroom, and I know you’re busy and everything, but if you could, well, find time to me so we could discuss how I could get some extra credit. I mean, I know I haven’t done all that well, but surely there’s some way to pull this up to an A, which I really need because after all, what’s a grade to you, one way or the other, and I know you realize how important this is to me . . .Extra credit?
patmoeck - October 13, 2009 at 9:48 am
This is such a cool test! Quite a day brightener now that it’s midterm.
swish - October 13, 2009 at 10:21 am
Has anyone out there ever had a student who asked for a *lower* grade on a paper than the “A” it received?I know at least one person who did this, as a student. Must’ve been very refreshing for the prof.
skocpol - October 13, 2009 at 10:56 am
I once accidentally exchanged test scores for two students with very similar names. The one deserving the lower score came to ask for it. Of course they knew each other, and figured out what had happened. Since the one who deserved the higher score did not intend to leave the error on the books, they decided that at least the one deserving the lower score could benefit on the letter of recommendation anecdote side. She did. Weren’t they both smart!
intered - October 13, 2009 at 11:23 am
T, T, F, T, T. The fact that a syllabus is “specific” does not confer rationality, internal consistency, equity, or just plain ambiguities that require resolution. Having done this kind of review work for a few years, I would estimate that 25-35% of the “specific” syllabi are sufficiently unclear or unsound that it is rational for a student to request further clarification. While we might all agree that performance evaluation is an essential component of good teaching, more than a few of us lack fundamental skills in performance evaluation, especially in the ability to create scientifically sound metrics, rubrics, etc. Like parenting, teaching is thrust upon us with little or no preparation thus we tend to teach (and evaluate) the same way our grand-professors taught.BTW: Grade challenges decline significantly when policy states that the assigned grade can go up, stay the same, OR decline. I suggest combining this policy with published statistics of the number of challenges and their disposition. If one-third or more of the grades end up lower, only the very serious student will challenge a grade.
dank48 - October 13, 2009 at 11:27 am
Intered, are you trying to cost me my A?
gtkarn - October 13, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I wonder: what disciplines receive the most grade grubbing? Do teachers of physics, chemistry biology, economics or any of the other disciplines claiming science status, receive such gripes from students? If so, what do they look like? For instance, do their students complain to these teachers about “subjectivity”?There’s a wonderful Doonesberry cartoon I used to have utside my office door. It’s the one about the student complaining that the proliferation of A’s has made people suspicious, so he asks for a C just to get some credibility into his record. In my experience, a C, once regarded as a grade for competent college-level work, is now regarded by most students as an F.
ex_ag - October 13, 2009 at 6:01 pm
intered,You are right that there are syllabi out there that need clarification. However, it’s the timing that students choose to voice this need for “clarification” that renders the action suspect.If a student asks for clarification early in the semester after they’ve just received it, that’s fine. But post-exam requests for “clarification” are almost always a prelude to grade-grubbing.