Negative Marks or How the School System Kicked me in the Nuts

[Thanatos5150]

If that's the case with yours, then I see no problem with it. Having a passing grade at 67%, however, is pretty high.

What? No? Passing at 67% correct? That's handing you the test on a silver platter.
Okay, so 65-70 per cent is common in American schools, but anything in that range is the professor telling you to get your ass in high gear. Culturally, we don't see anything below 70% as passing, unless we're being pedantic. College courses in my local system don't transfer unless you got a 70% in the course, itself.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Whoa, whoa whoa. Hold up. What place lets you pass a test with a 50%? Because my college requires 80+% on everything. Even the course as a whole. Getting 79% or lower means you have to re-take the entire class.

That depends on where you are and how hard it is marked. 80% may be normal and easier to get where you are compared to other places.

OT: The only problem I see here is that a blank counts as a wrong answer. Negative marking is there to cancel out and/or stop you from guessing.

 

[Madgamer13]

Greets!

Lots of stats and stuff about universities in this thread, makes me glad I never had the chance to attend any as a student. Would have been quite a stress if I cared at all about actually getting qualifications.

I am more familiar with Technical Colleges in the UK and I am even more familiar with the way that only a few established courses are actually properly serviced. What I mean by serviced, is that their tutors are told what is expected of their students. This lack of information has been the bane of my student life since leaving high school at 16 with only a single GCSE.

I am not certain if awarding bodies are interested at all in courses from Technical Colleges, but the computer repair related courses I had attended when I was younger quite literally had no way to pass them, resulting in atrocious failure and drop out rates. Until I got an internal verifier at least.

Once I got my hands on an internal verifier, I worked with them and my tutors to create a portfolio that the awarding body might accept. For me, it was not a case of whether I was getting a high enough mark, it was more a case of how convincing my portfolio was to someone who didn't know me. Creating such a thing is a hell of alot harder than making sure your answers are right.

Psh, University goers, they do not know how easy it is for them, they only need to push forward until they are let off their leashes with their shiny pieces of paper. Academic failures like myself do not even know how to make something look!

But that doesn't matter, really. In my case, a recent course I was taking my time up with was operating at degree level and I had no idea it was. Most disturbingly, I could handle the course easily, with my tutor and various other visitors to the class calling me one worthy of distinction.

'Distinction' doesn't mean anything to me, however. I do not even know how I was handling a course at such a level when I barely even qualify to do some A levels.

Pfft, Schools.

 

[irishmanwithagun]

Ok guys. I have a bit of a rant and a question for all of you. Today I received the results for my 1st year Genetics and Cell Bio exam. The exam consisted of 100 multiple choice questions. I was only taking the class as an elective so I didn't put as much effort into it as my major. Anyway, most people would love to take a multiple choice test. The only catch was this:

Every wrong answer = Negative 1/4 of a percent.

To pass an exam you need to score at least 50%. Any lower and you fail. When I received my results I sadly obtained a 40. Now lets do some math.

If I lose 1/4 of a % for each wrong answer then to answer half of the questions correct gives me a result of 37.5%. This means that to achieve the passing mark of 50% you in fact need to correctly answer 62.5% of the exam.

I legitimately correctly answered over half of the questions correctly. Yet I failed because of the penalty. After some research I found that no other classes that have multiple choice exams deduct points.

So my question to you escapists is whether or not you think it is fair? That's pretty much my rant. Mostly wanted to blow off some steam.

I'm not sure what you're so indignant about. I hate to sound pedantic but it seems to me that if you scored 40/100 then you'd have failed even if the test was just a 50/100 pass. I mean, the system IS unfair and should never be employed by any school system that isn't governed by complete and utter morons but I don't get how you can complain about your result or how the system screwed you over. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[Call me Baz]

I don't know exactly the content of a genetics and cell bio course, or quite what it would lead into (I guess cloning?) but when it comes to medical stuff I'm glad there's a high pass rate. I dont want someone to clone me another ear after one of mine gets chopped off just because they GUESSED RIGHT. That's scary.

Equally I don't want someone to clone me an ear on my foot because I lost a toe.

How did I lose an ear or a toe for that matter, I haven't even broken a bone once in my life ....

 

[barbzilla]

Whoa, whoa whoa. Hold up. What place lets you pass a test with a 50%? Because my college requires 80+% on everything. Even the course as a whole. Getting 79% or lower means you have to re-take the entire class.

Same here, I think it depends though. My girlfriend is doing her post grad stuff now and with the exception of her medical classes they have a 50% pass mark on the tests. Though passing and failing is a binary mark 1/0, you either pass or fail, percentages don't go about mucking about with your overall grade.

OT: I don't see the issue here, you knew the marks required to pass the test prior to the test. If that is the ruler they wish to measure success, then that is the level of comprehension you are required to obtain (or greater).

 

[R3dF41c0n]

Wow, this is the first I've heard of something like this. I guess it kinda makes sense because you have to get at least 70% of the questions correct to pass on most US exams. Except in the US we just count correct answers, there is no penalty (unless you look at it as you start with 100% and subtract for each wrong answer).

 

[Dimitriov]

Getting 50% should be a failing grade anyway in my opinion. So I have no problem with it.

 

[alandavidson]

I was only taking the class as an elective so I didn't put as much effort into it as my major.

Nobody kicked you in the nuts. You didn't prepare for the test and you paid for it.

Most tests require 70% or more to pass. I constantly have to take tests for ICS/NIMS/USACE, and the minimum to pass those is 76%.

So next time study harder and you'll pass. Don't consider this being screwed, consider it a lesson learned.

 

[Something Amyss]

If that's the case with yours, then I see no problem with it. Having a passing grade at 67%, however, is pretty high.

A lot of school systems in the US (maybe elsewhere, don't know), put a D at 65 or better. Which makes a 67 not look like such a difference.

 

[wolfyrik]

The entire thing is unfair. It's unbelievably hideous to test by multiple choice. It doesn't allow for creativity, which in other exams would allow you to show that you understood the subject but just missed some information. This type of exam is hateful. It's bad for education, bad for pupils.
The only people it benefits are the examiners, who get to spend less time examining and more time playing pictionary on their smartphones, while raking in the same amount of money had they done a legitimate test.

OP, had the examinating body not been a bunch of bastards who are fleecing the education system, you would have been able to demonstrate your knowledge and aptitude for the subject, instead of your abiltiy to memorise facts and/or guess. So yes it absolutely was unfair. Just not for the reason you thought.

 

[Magikarp]

If you don't give an answer, do you still get the deduction? I remember a similar type of penalty being applied to some math tests in high school, but you had to attempt the question in order to lose a mark. You didn't lose marks if you didn't answer it.

If that's the case with yours, then I see no problem with it. Having a passing grade at 67%, however, is pretty high.

You lost a mark if you left it blank as well. They encouraged guessing while at the same time discouraging it,

Your school has completely missed the point of negative marking then. It's designed to discourage random guessing. The way your school has done it has done nothing that couldn't be achieved by changing the grade boundaries.

 

[kaizen2468]

I've personally never heard of a school doing this, but I'm Canadian so maybe it's different in other countries.

 

[370999]

snip.

Thanks. Seems really hard to grasp it, I stil think having 50% as a pass makes more sense.

 

[Psykoma]

Its there to discourage wild guessing.

He also said that they lost points for leaving questions blank. So you're forced to guess...

Ummmm, no. The university is forcing you to know what you're doing

 

[MagunBFP]

Only valid answer: No, it's not fair. It's not even close to logical, for that matter.
They did that shit to us at university one semester. After the student body damn near burned down the campus and raped the administration with 10-foot poles, the idiotic system was revoked, but those who'd done poorly on the exams because of it still had to live with their crappy grades.

So the test was to blame for those students not knowing the course material?

No, it wasn't, and folks who don't study don't deserve passing grades.
But that's not the point, Mr. Highandmighty, and if you stopped to think for two seconds before switching to snide mode you'd realize that people have varying strengths and weaknesses. For example, my grade average at uni hovers around 1.7 (or B+, if you will), so I'm donig reasonably well, yet there are some exams I've only passed by the skin of my teeth, despite studying for weeks on end; failing a test like that even though you did the very best you could because of a retarded marking system is WRONG. It's the very epitome of inappropriate negative reinforcement.
And before you launch into another snarky response, save yourself the time, because I'm not even remotely willing to argue that point - it stands, as far as I'm concerned.

I am going to respond because, well, I can. You may or may not like my opinion but I've got every right to put it out there as you have to say its wrong.

No one deserves a degree for trying their best. I'm sorry but thats not how it works. If you've tried your best and you still don't get it then its unfortunate but you just don't know what you've been studying. If a Doctor doesn't know anatomy he shouldn't be a Doctor, an Engineer who tries his best but just can't think with physics shouldn't be an Engineer. Nothing in your response, Mr. Iwantmarksforgettingmynameright, gives a reason for why that test was wrong. You argue that it pulled your grade average down, you argue that its wrong because you failed for not getting the marks required to pass. Tests with negative marking do two things, they reward knowing your stuff and the punish not knowing it.

If the material was taught(not turning up to class doesn't mean it wasn't taught just that you weren't there) and the test is passable (ie other people passed it) then the reason for failing was you didn't know the course well enough... you might have tried or you might not but at the end of the day the exam is designed to demostrate that you know what you've spent the last semester studying.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Its there to discourage wild guessing.

He also said that they lost points for leaving questions blank. So you're forced to guess...

Ummmm, no. The university is forcing you to know what you're doing

If you don't know an answer.
Thus meaning that it's useless as a means of preventing wild guessing...

 

[Zyst]

80% was the minimum passing grade in my University, stop bitching, if you don't want the class then don't take it and don't waste your money and your professor time.