NOTES ON WRITING DOWN YOUR EXAMINATION ANSWERS
In theory, how you choose to write down the answers to the examination questions
should make no difference to your marks, provided that the material is there. In
practice, we are human, we have to complete the marking together with marking for
other papers against a deadline which is often uncomfortably tight, and we can
make mistakes.
It is therefore in your best interests, as well as ours, for you to do
what you can to present your answers clearly and straightforwardly, and to
make them easy for us to find. Here are some hints which might help.
First, three principles. These hold no matter how you present your answers, but
notice that, inevitably, the mark that we give depends on our being able to
find and understand what you write.
-
We want you to pass, and we are eager to give marks - but you have to give
us an excuse to do so. You have to convince us that you understand enough about
operating systems to justify our telling the world that we think you do. And we
can only mark what you tell us, not what you thought you meant. There is no set
pass rate, and we will be delighted to pass all of you, but you have to give us
hard evidence which we can show to anyone who questions the pass rate.
-
We will do our best, subject to constraints of time, to understand what you
write, no matter how you present it - but if we can't understand it there
isn't much we can do.
-
We do not mark spelling, punctuation, grammar, or neatness. Once again, though,
all these are aids to comprehension, and we do have to understand what you're
trying to tell us before we can mark it.
Now the hints. They're not rules or laws; interpret them sensibly. If you ignore
them, we'll cope. They are merely intended to make life easier for all concerned.
-
Please write legibly if you can manage it. We don't much care what medium you
use - pen, pencil, blood, etc. - provided that we can read it. Pencil
can get smudged, though in practice it's very rare. ( It is possible that
the official insistence on writing in ink is to ensure that your answers can't be
changed by malign agencies after you've handed in the books. In fact, the
examinations staff are too busy and we have neither inclination nor time for such
stupidity, but if you want to be sure write in ink. ) ( NOTE :
"blood" was a joke. Don't. )
-
Please do NOT use red pens for question numbers ( or anything else ) in the
margins. We use red pens for marking, and if you confuse our numbers with yours some are likely to get
lost. Note that it is easier to avoid yours than to catch all ours, so if
there's a mistake you are more likely to lose than to win.
-
Write the numbers of the questions you've answered on the front page of the first
answer book, in the order in which they appear in the book. Please do
not sort them; if they're in order we can use them to find the answers quickly,
and over 170 scripts that makes a difference.
-
Try to keep all parts of the answer to a question together, but don't worry
unduly if it doesn't work out; just make sure that we can find the separate parts
if we start reading from the beginning. You might put a link at the end of each
part; see DISC FILE SYSTEMS for a way of storing a serial file. Do NOT
list all the parts on the front page, unless they are widely separated.
-
If you write something which you decide is wrong, just cross it out. We're used
to it; we don't care. Don't mess about with correcting
fluid ( Twink, etc. ).
And, finally, a note written in some exasperation after marking last year's
examination scripts :
|
It is sad, but clearly true every year, that a significant proportion of the
students in the 340 class are unable to read the clearly printed instructions on
the cover of the examination answer book, where it says ( among other
things ) :
Begin the answer to a new question on a new page.
and
Write in the margin the number of each question attempted.
Do not use the margin for anything else.
Some of the instructions we don't care about, but those are important. I have
wasted a lot of time scrabbling through answer books looking for practically
invisible beginnings of questions, and it is not conducive to the benevolent
frame of mind in which generous impulses might lead to the occasional additional
mark. It wastes more time checking that the marks have been correctly transcribed
to the cover, because the question totals can't be put at the top of the first
page of the question.
If you are concerned about the ecological implications of wasting the occasional
half side of paper, we sympathise, but as few answer books are completely used
anyway the difference is tiny. Do not emulate one 1997 student who had the
effrontery to write "Save the trees" before an answer which started in the middle
of the page, while leaving blank the reverse sides of all the pages in the first
answer book and using a second answer book to write a single page. Incidentally,
the instructions also say :
Use both sides of each leaf.
|
Alan Creak,
October, 1998.
Go to the 340 main course page;;
Go to Alan;
Go to Robert;
Go to Computer Science.