Mon, 14 Oct 2013, 18:44

My students,

I forgot to tell you something before we handed back the exams, and as a
result, I am already being deluged by email.

If, after you have looked at the solution sheet of the exam, you feel your
exam was graded incorrectly, please follow the following process:

Step 1. Take your exam to one of the TAs and discuss your concerns with
him/her.  If the TA explains to your satisfaction why you received the
grade you got on each of your problems, we are done.

Step 2. If the TA feels I should look at the exam or if you are not satisfied
with the TA's explanation, the TA will bring your exam to me.  I will look at
your entire exam and get back to you.  I will change the number of points on
each problem that I feel was graded incorrectly.  Put your email address on 
the front page of the exam so I don't have to scramble looking for a best 
email address for you.  If it is not completely legible, you will not receive 
a response from me.  If you are satisfied with my response, done.

Step 3. If you are not satisfied with my response, I will meet with you in
person.

A few additional comments.  It took me and my TAs 9 1/2 hours yesterday
to grade the exams.  We made every attempt to grade every problem uniformly
for each student.  The point distribution for each problem may not be 100%
clear to you.  My process was to assign points for each part of each problem
before we started grading.  The grader (me or one of my TAs) then assigned
points to all students on that problem according to that preset distribution.
It is true that some problems were graded more quickly than others, in which
case, a second or third TA helped in the grading of a problem that was 
particularly hard to grade.  Every attempt was made to maintain fairness in
assigning points to the various parts of a problem.  It is also true that
my TAs and I are human and so could have made mistakes.  If you feel your
exam was graded unfairly, bring it to the attention of one of the TAs, and
it will eventually come to me.

Also, please be sure to make no additional marks on your exam if you 
question the grading.  If I look at your exam, I will expect to be 
looking at exactly what was on the exam when you turned it in.

Good luck with the rest of the course.

Yale Patt