Tues, 17th Nov 2015, 00:41 Re: Lab 2 grading Feedback

A student writes:


> Dr. Patt,
>
>    I see that lab two grades have been posted. I understand that with 400+
> students it is difficult to give feedback on assignments. I thought my
> program was working under the test cases I checked before submitting it. Is
> there something that would show what test cases my program failed in. All
> the grading indicates is that 0 points are awarded. Just anything to find
> out why it failed would help me understand where I went wrong. Thank you
> for your time.
>
> V/R
> <<name withheld to protect the student who genuinely thought he did better
> than his lab 2 grade indicated.>>


At the risk (and I really hope you don't) of encouraging some students to
unwarrantedly push for points, I will say the following.  If you got a very
low grade and you genuinely thought you did fine, your grade may have been
the result of a simple mistake that screwed up most of the test cases or it
may simply be that you did not follow the directions specifically provided in
the instructions you were given.

Because both happen often enough, if you genuinely feel you did much, much
better than the grade you got, please send email to Siavash and we will
examine your program by hand.  If you did not follow clear directions, you
will be penalized severely since I do not think it is unreasonable to expect
you to read and follow directions.  However you will not get a 0 for your
first time offense.  If it is a simple mistake, we may fix it and see what
that produces, again potentially improving your grade a lot.

BUT, if you see this as an opportunity to unwarrantedly push for points,
please don't.  (a) it will not work, and (b) you will waste everyone's time.
There are more than 350 students in the class, and I have just invited all
of you to consider that your lab 2 was misgraded.  You know if yours was.
Please do not create work for my TAs if you know it will not go anywhere.
My TAs will tell me the results of each request for examination.

Most importantly, lab 4 is now posted and available for your attention.
I hope you get it working before leaving for Thanksgiving so you can show
off some of what you have learned to your friends back home and family.

Good luck with the rest of the course.



Yale Patt