Only time I ever saw grades like this in engineering classes were when the whole test cascaded. Essentially one question broken into like 8 parts (or maybe 3 questions in 5 parts) but essentially A. was define your system boundaries and maybe variables and B-X were then solve for x to then find y to find z etc etc. had a class where essentially no partial credit was given and if you got A wrong you could still go about the entire rest of the test with the wrong parameters and not know it so even if your logic and math was correct for B onward, because A was wrong B was wrong C was wrong, etc. the mean on one of the midterms was 16 once (high was 95, median was 0). Class was fucked and a couple years later those professors were quietly moved off of that class.
That’s often how they work. I think that’s what the other person was explaining, albeit in a convoluted way, but in essence, each subsequent question builds off the answer from the previous question. So once you get a wrong answer, you get all the next answers wrong too. If you get the first one wrong, you’re fucked.
And you’re not just graded on the answer, but whether you’ve applied and followed the formulas correctly.
On the bright side, they’re usually graded on a curve.
On the bright side, they’re usually graded on a curve.
I remember back in undergrad I was in a control systems course for ME's and the max score on the midterm was like a 30, and the teacher curved on the max so that was an A+
It kinda depends on how stuff is wrong and so on. But if there are cascading errors, then getting stuff wrong will intrinsically lead to the kind of score shown (and a failing grade).
Depends on how early on the mistake it (because mistakes do cascade) and if they can evaluate "was your process right, but you're mistake at the start fumbled the final result?"
Like, if everything is right, but someone brain farted and wrong a 6 instead of an 8 despite thinking in their head that they wrote 8. then a le
If both can be proven, the a fair professor will mark you wrong for the final answer, but not the the whole problem (say given you 20points for a 30point question (in order words, "this mistake costs you a letter grade)). With the lesson/assumption being, you would have caught that mistake on a pre-submission review/non-time crunch scenario.
Civil engineering grad here, my statics professor sure as hell did not let us use the textbook or other resources for exams loll. It's the basis for the rest of civil engineering, you really need to understand it. We did get a formula sheet though, it was either an index card size cheat sheet we put together or he gave us the formulas on the test. Can't remember.
For our final we were given something we had never done before. The professor said. "It's one thing to be able to memorize formulas. It's another to be able to apply those formulas to something new."
This was before the age of ai and we had to design a skyscraper with his location and specifications in mind.
Meaning we had to account for EVERYTHING. Ground type, wind speed weather and even budget.
I mean these are students not PE certified engineers. While I appreciate the gravity of the impact as an AeroE myself working human spaceflight, if you don't let people fail while learning how will they improve. I had a gnarly orbital mechanics class that the first exam average was a 45/100 or a FEM class junior year with a 65/100 midterm avg. Guess what happened? A majority of the students didn't want to go into structures because they didn't think they could havk it only because the TA was an AH with an axe to grind.
There's a balance between rigor and outright demoralizing teaching.
Had an electromagnetism test like this except the professor outlined in the instructions that you could, at any point, check your answer for any question with him to make sure you are entering into the next one with the correct number. But if you chose to do this, you would sacrifice all possible points you may or may not have been given for that specific question. It was straight psychological warfare.
Yea my statics exams were like 4 questions each with 5-6 numbers your looking for, such as solving for force on different truss segments or applying a load in a different direction or position. So if you were confused on the setup entirely or made a small mistake you may get a quarter of the test wrong
Mine too. We did have one especially nasty one where every answer was in the original numbers given & tons of people mind gamed themselves out of acing it in 5 minutes though
I had one elec engineering prof who decided he wanted to try a new marking schema for that term: -1 for a wrong answer, 0 for blank and 1 for correct. The first midterm had an average of -4/20 (negative four). I felt amazing for getting a 9/20.
After that midterm he decided he was going to go back to the usual system of marking.
Scenarios like this always really fucked with some professors weird hell curve grading schemes where suddenly your like 4 st dev above average with a score of 9/100 on a test worth 30% of your grade and you could theoretically skip the.rest of the class and still pass
In my undergrad there was very little scaling and all courses required you to pass the final to pass the course. That particular class was never scaled.
I had questions like that on my robotics exam, 4 questions with 2 questions with multiple parts (a-d for each) that were based on the previous question.
So if you didn’t set a good frame up for Q1, then the parts and Q2 could be wrong if not impossible to solve, and impossible was also a correct answer on some hw so it could make sense. Luckily my professor gave partial credit if your work was legible.
Only time I ever saw grades like this in engineering classes were when the whole test cascaded. Essentially one question broken into like 8 parts (or maybe 3 questions in 5 parts) but essentially A. was define your system boundaries and maybe variables and B-X were then solve for x to then find y to find z etc etc.
When I was in school, the advice we got for questions like this was literally to just make up an answer if you couldn't find it, for the purposes of answering the following questions, and you could still get full marks if your process and answers were correct from the inputs you picked even if they were different from what would be expected from using the actual correct answers as inputs.
My fluid mechanics prof had a fairly simple solution to prevent this. The questions would typically be in steps and start with "Verify such and such is 100 kPa" and you had to calculate / derive that answer. If you somehow could not, you wouldn't get any points for step 1, but you could move on to step 2 knowing step 1 was 100 kPa and use that in step 2 and not be completely slaughtered b/c you forgot how to do a single step in a lengthy process (or b/c you couldn't remember some bullshit like an obscure trig identity you hadn't seen or used in years)
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u/Comrade_Falcon 1d ago
Only time I ever saw grades like this in engineering classes were when the whole test cascaded. Essentially one question broken into like 8 parts (or maybe 3 questions in 5 parts) but essentially A. was define your system boundaries and maybe variables and B-X were then solve for x to then find y to find z etc etc. had a class where essentially no partial credit was given and if you got A wrong you could still go about the entire rest of the test with the wrong parameters and not know it so even if your logic and math was correct for B onward, because A was wrong B was wrong C was wrong, etc. the mean on one of the midterms was 16 once (high was 95, median was 0). Class was fucked and a couple years later those professors were quietly moved off of that class.