About the bridge problem. One should bear in mind that half the doctors
practicing out there were in the bottom 50% of their med. school classes.
lillie
At 02:38 AM 8/1/97 -0400, CoolMath2@AOL.COM wrote:
>I've enjoyed the back-and-forth on the pros and cons of multiple choice exams
>(which I think I somehow started!). 8-)
>
>So, here's another one to kick around. Let me play devil's advocate for a
>minute.....
>
>You're driving over a bridge. It collapses. You find the engineer who
>designed it and ask him (from your wheelchair) how he could have made such a
>mistake! His reply, "Well, I never did really get any answers right on my
>exams.... But I got B's and C's on partial credit! The bridge *did* last for
>5 years!"
>
>Or....
>
>After being in that bridge/collapse accident, you wake up on an operating
>table. The Dr. who is about to open you up survived college on partial
>credit!! Do you want that Dr? "Let's see........ the appendix is on the
>left - no, right side!! How many points do I get for that?"
>
>Perhaps these have been exagerations. Perhaps they haven't.
>
>I have been fretting about the whole idea of partial credit. The scariest
>part is that I worry that not many students would pass my classes without it!
> The course that scares me the most is my Math for Elementary School Teachers
>--- A student (who wants to teach *your* children) cannot complete a long
>division problem correctly, but asserts that she got it almost right, so I
>need to give her more points!
>
>How many of your students have argued with you over the amount of partial
>credit that you have deemed appropriate for their partial solution? Or,
>better yet, they've somehow gotten the right answer..... but the work breaks
>all the rules or doesn't match up and you don't give them full credit! That
>brings about even more complaints.
>
>This will probably bother me for the next 27 years of my career........ What
>does everyone out there think?
>
>Karen
>Orange Coast College
>http://members.aol.com/coolmath2/coolmath.htm
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Lillie R.F. Crowley
Associate Professor, Mathematics
138 Moloney Building
Lexington Community College
Cooper Drive
Lexington, KY 40506-0235
(606) 257-2797
(606) 257-4988 (FAX)
lillie@pop.uky.edu
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