> Really? You've NEVER made an error on an exam? EVERY question was
> perfect?
> 
> Come now, you'd can't expect perfection on something as artificial as an
> exam. There is nothing in real life that approaches an exam in
> "craziness", and to expect people to act perfectly on one is IMHO
> unreasonable.

WTF??

I thought that when I was a student, but once I got into the real world
I found out much differently. The worst exam questions I've ever had
pale in comparison to being thrown on a project to "fix" it with a week's
deadline for a six month project and a boss that doesn't bother to give
me the right specs so I have to figure out what she really wanted so I
could do the job.

> Do you REALLY think that "nailing" a student for one tiny error is a
> good idea, from a society point of view? Don't you believe in "learning
> from mistakes"? If every time a person made a small mistake they'd be
> hammered into the ground I doubt anybody would be left at the end of the
> year.

Like Mike Hord says later, if they get the units wrong, the answer is wrong.
Take off whatever points the answer is worth.

Letting students go with partial credit, IMNSHO, encourages students to
avoid paying attention to details.

> Mistakes happen. To think that by punishing them with a sledge hammer
> will eliminate them is IMHO unrealistic.

And *nothing* a decent teacher does will ever hit with the force the real
world can. A great teacher can encourage students to do things right the
first time rather than create costly mistakes in the real world.
-- 
D. Jay Newman           ! Author of: _Linux Robotics: Building Smarter Robots_
jay@sprucegrove.com     ! ME? I vos travelink about. Deliverink messages.
http://enerd.ws/robots  ! Causink TROUBLE. -- a female Jaeger from Girl Genius
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