[Rant] My professor lost my test

Ask him if he meant he lost your exam paper but had graded it( and recorded the grade) or he lost the paper ungraded.

 

What kind of personality does your professor have?

 

I too am struggling in economics. I'm pulling a high D in that class and I'm just pulling for that C. I need work hard on extra credit and study for the finals.

Just thought I'd put that out there.

 

UPS lost my package. I feel ya.

 

SAT tests have been lost...but yeah sucks for you. hopefully everything gets worked out.

 

Is EDUCATION really all that?

What VHS-quality of school is this?

 

Believe it or not, I've had this exact thing happen to me. It was a Political Science final, and it counted for half the semester grade. Due to severe weather (ice storm) I had to take the test as a makeup (with prof permission). I ended up taking the test in the admin office, and chatting with the secretary afterwards about the nasty weather. I knew I aced the test, so I didn't even bother to check the exact grade I got.

Imagine my surprise when I received my grades for the semester and had an F for Poli Sci. I immediately called the prof (during Christmas break), left a message saying, in a very nice and politic way, that my grade was incorrect and that my final had probably not been factored in before grades posted. The prof never called me back. Kept calling him, leaving messages 2-3 times a week once school started back up in the spring. Still no call back. I ended up having to go to the dean of the school to get something done. The dean heard me out, promised to look into it, and actually did something about it. A week later, the prof finally confesses that he lost a whole stack of exams, and just failed the students rather than admit his mistake. Students had been contacting him all Christmas break with the same issue, but he just ignored them. The only reason he got caught was that the admin secretary remembered her conversation with me and told the dean that I had, in fact, taken the exam. The prof actually suggested that the students all retake the exam. Needless to say, that prof is no longer teaching at the university.

So the moral of the story is: don't count on the prof to do the right thing. They might, but they might not. Keep that email he sent saying he lost the test, just in case.

 

Tell your professor you will do ANYTHING for an A.

 

It sucks, but it happens.

Particularly in these large seminars with 200 students in them - you always have the 20 or so who have special circumstances, who turn in a paper late or have to turn something in/take an exam early - professors (and TAs) are not accomplished secretaries. They have their own work to do, often quite a bit of work, and also have to deal with the concerns of hundreds of students. That's not to excuse the lapses, but to explain why they happen.

Also, around finals time all the students panic - all the things they should have worried about earlier suddenly become important to them, and they flood the professor's (and TAs) office with emails, calls, visits, requests for special office hours so they can discuss absences, and so forth. Keep in mind that the end of the semester is typically when Professors are busy making plans for publications, visits to conferences, and so forth. And, it's the time when TAs (who are almost always graduate students) are busy grading all the final essays (often very many of them) at the same time they're trying to complete their own work/prepare for comprehensive exams or thesis defenses/scheduling conferences, and on and on.

I don't know if those are your circumstances. Personally, I think universities do EVERYONE a massive disservice whenever they have a class with more than 100 students registered. It's the administration's desire to pack as many paying students as possible into as many classrooms as possible that causes problems like this in the first place.

Also, some students would rather be devious than actually work and study - there are students who, after skipping an exam or failing to turn work in, will insist that they did so simply to put the onus of their laziness on the professor/TA. I've seen students do that, but I've never seen one succeed.

The role of a professor in these massive seminars is very difficult, and students alway seem to be completely oblivious to the amount of work that goes into administering a class. Whenever you ask for something extra - extra days to finish an assignment, extra attention because you can't remember how many absences you have, extra office hours because you can't make the schedule office hours - imagine that there are at least 10 other students doing that, with different requests, and different
times they can come by. Also keep in mind that some of those students are lying to make up for their failure to complete an assignment/wake up on time/and so on. Professors and TAs deal with more silly bull**** than probably anyone but the cops.

Really, the only thing the professor can do in this situation is apologize and try to find a fair way to rectify the problem.

Like I said: It sucks (for everyone involved), but it happens. While you are naturally concerned about your own grades (as you should be), try to understand that the professor has to be concerned with your grade and with hundreds others.

 

Man, that's awful - did he lose just your test or several others also?


I think that if I knew I wanted to study with it later on, I probably would have just made a copy myself before turning it in.

 

This is just a shady situation to begin with. These days professors won't take anything that isn't typed out, especially take home exams. Also, what kind of professor loses an exam? I read Thadeus' response and while it does make sense, I'm just not buying into that sort of reasoning. These are men and women with PhDs and they have time and a duty to work in a professional manner. Of course they're busy, but who isn't these days? Anyways, I'm sure it's in the guy's office somewhere. It's impossible to lose an exam. He may have thrown it out with his food or his dog might have actually eaten it, but no way did he lose it. Ask to see if you can check around in his office or tell him to double check the stack of other exams to see if it's in there somewhere.

 

How is shady? Is there some kind of test stealing conspiracy (by the people giving it out, no less) the rest of us aren't privy to?

 

Haha, no, I meant shady in that he's not looking hard enough for it (if it's actually lost). But no way is it lost. Most professors grade papers in their office and if not, they take it home. You tell me, how can it be lost if there are only 2 places it could actually be. If it's "lost" then I really feel it was accidentally thrown out or something along those lines. He knows where it and isn't being honest about it.

 

This is a new twist usually the student loses the paper.

DD

 

A similar incident happened to a gentleman in my business economics course Tuesday. The professor passed out the graded test to the students then after reviewing the tests had us pass them up the row to the front (FERPA violation!). Well, yesterday he announced one of the student's test did not make it to him and if the test is not found, the student must retake the exam or receive a 0.


The student was upset because they received a 25/27 (92%) and it was not their fault that this was the professor's method of collecting the test. We'll see what happens I guess but I think that's just wrong of the professor.

 

Man that's ****ed up. I'd be just about ready to break out the ol' slashing of the tires at that point.

 

You're really splitting hairs here. Perhaps someone inadvertantly picked it up from his office. Perhaps someone in his family inadvertantly moved it in his house. Perhaps he thought he put it in his "papers to grade" folder, but in turn put it somewhere else. There are many places it COULD be.