all the grading is done and we are adding up total scores, in order to cut a grade distribution curve.
i finish my piles early and see one graduate student without a hand-held calculator. i offer him my borrowed one.
"no thanks," he replied,
"but i'm better with my head."
he returns to the list of problem scores -- there are 14 problems -- sits, blinks, enters in 3-digit scores. this continues.
i wonder how good he is, at figures.
[today/monday]
currently, i'm entering in final exam grades.
i'm a slave to habit: when i was a graduate student, we had a computer interface which separated the task of grade entry.
for each exam, we entered in the score per problem and left the computer to take sums. all we had to do was to enter in numbers and checked that the numbers matched.
from experience, switching from page to screen was error-prone, and usually the grading ended at around midnight or 1am. subsequently grad students would pair up: one called out scores, the other typed them in.
i summed up most of my students' exam scores, which is good. so far, those scores are accurate.
of the total scores in someone else's handwriting, i've already found 5 inaccuracies, with one error as large as 15 points (on a 200-point test).
argh. i hate being right in my suspicions.
well, at least this is not a waste of time.
honestly, i dislike my students using their graphing calculators as crutches.
on the other hand, handheld calculators were invented for such purposes as repeatedly adding up numbers accurately, because the human mind is limited.
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