To: (professor/teacher)__________
From:_______________
From:_______________
I think my grade in your course,__________, should be changed from___to___for the following reason(s) [check all that apply]:
- The persons who copied my paper made a higher grade than I did.
- The person whose paper I copied made a higher grade than I did.
- This course will lower my GPA and I won't get into:
__Med School __Law School __Grad School - I have to get an A in this course to balance the F in ___________.
- I'll lose my scholarship.
- I'm on a varsity sports team and my coach couldn't find a copy of your exam.
- I didn't come to class and the person whose notes I used did not cover the material asked for on the exam.
- I studied the basic principles and the exam wanted only facts.
- I studied the facts and definitions but the exam asked about general principles.
- You are prejudiced against:
__ Males
__ Females
__ Minorities
__ Poor people
__ Rich people - If I flunk out of school my father will disinherit me or at least cut my allowance.
- I was unable to do well in this course because of :
__ mono
__ acute alcoholism
__ drug addiction
__ VD/STD
__ broken baby finger
__ pregnancy
__ fatherhood - You told us to be creative but you didn't tell us exactly how you wanted that done.
- I was being creative and you didn't appreciate it.
- Your lectures were:
__ too detailed to pick out important points
__ too boring
__ not explained in sufficient detail
__ all jokes and no material - Some of the questions in your exams were not covered in the lectures.
- I was always prepared except for the few times you called upon me in class.
- This course was scheduled:
__ too early
__ too late
__ before gym
__ after gym
__ before lunch
__ after lunch. - My (dog, cat, gerbil, baby sister, baby brother) (ate, wet on, threw up on) my (book, notes, paper) for this course.
- I don't have a reason; I just want a higher grade.
Why aren't you studying?
Looking through your old posts because as the blog implies, I'm putting off studying for my chem 363 exam, I was wondering if you've ever changed the grade of someone who came to you and asked for it? (For any one or more of these reasons, or possibly some good reasons.)
Dr. A,
If I've made a mistake in marking, I will change a student's mark. It happened this term--I completely missed something that a student had written in a short-answer question. She pointed it out to me and I happily upped her mark.
Multiple choice exams are a bit different. As I wrote in On Being Picky, there may be disputes about correct answers. If a student can support their choice, I will give them a mark. This does require some effort, beyond just coming to my office and arguing a point.
In other cases, though, students have not performed how they expected to, and they try trolling for marks. I'm not going to change a student's mark just because they didn't like it, and want to get a higher mark--there's no point to marking if that's going to happen.