I didn't pass one of my university exams
I study at kings college london and I didn't pass one of my university exams, and in one question we had to use an equation to work out the quantity of ethanol someone had taken. In this equation it had weight in it (so we had to use the weight of the person in question). But the weight of the person was not provided. The only other information available was the other values that I could plug into this equation. There was nothing else that could help me with the weight issue in the exam. So I emailed one of my lecturers about it and asked if there could have been a mistake in the question (my university has messed up before, one lecturer despite constant reminders didn't provide his lecture slides till very very close to the exam, so close that no one ended up studying his material). The lecturer responded but didn't say whether there had been a mistake and all they said was that I could have used the average weight of a male in this question but if I did not do so I will not be penalised for this. Due to this question as I was struggling for ages on this I wasted alot of time and could not answer the other questions as well despite studying the material very well and knowing the answers. I didn't have enough time and I could not structure my answers properly. But after believing I would not be penalised I genuinely thought I at least passed but to my horror I found out I didn't and emailed the same lecturer who then told me that this lecturer had average weight of a male in his lectures and i should have used it so I was penalised for that question but I just went through this lecturers lectures and it's not there and its not in my notes that I made from listening to the recordings.
What should I do? I'm so upset
What should I do? I'm so upset
(edited 5 years ago)
So basically you broke the first rule of a exam. Move on if you can’t do a question
Original post by niteninja1
So basically you broke the first rule of a exam. Move on if you can’t do a question
this question was worth a significant amount of marks so I panicked but your right, I should have moved on and came back to it later
Sounds like a bit of a brain fart under pressure tbh, what answer did you give? :/
I don't know the subject but I got halfway through yr post when I worked out you could have just picked any weight and the equation would be demonstrated the same, hell if I was in doubt i'd just add 'This is based on a weight of...' I'd expect to lose 1 mark at most for not using the defined average.
I can sympathise, I wasted an hour of a genetics exam because I had a brain fart and forgot what headings a table should have, and for the sake of a mark or two it simply wasn't worth the amount of time it took from others questions.
I don't know the subject but I got halfway through yr post when I worked out you could have just picked any weight and the equation would be demonstrated the same, hell if I was in doubt i'd just add 'This is based on a weight of...' I'd expect to lose 1 mark at most for not using the defined average.
I can sympathise, I wasted an hour of a genetics exam because I had a brain fart and forgot what headings a table should have, and for the sake of a mark or two it simply wasn't worth the amount of time it took from others questions.
Original post by tammie123
this question was worth a significant amount of marks so I panicked but your right, I should have moved on and came back to it later
Do you get the option of a summer resit?
Original post by niteninja1
Do you get the option of a summer resit?
Yes, I can resit it in august but its just a pain having to do it all again
I'm afraid I don't think there's much you can do other than resitting this exam, or whatever you have to do if you fail an exam. It sounds to me like you were expecting university-level exams to be similar to A Levels and fair enough I guess if nobody has explained this to you beforehand, but you should not expect questions to be set out for you any more. I don't think it's unreasonable for you to be expected to come up with a reasonable figure for the weight of an adult, so in the future, bear in mind that you may well be expected to use your common sense and knowledge to answer a question.
Original post by Plagioclase
I'm afraid I don't think there's much you can do other than resitting this exam, or whatever you have to do if you fail an exam. It sounds to me like you were expecting university-level exams to be similar to A Levels and fair enough I guess if nobody has explained this to you beforehand, but you should not expect questions to be set out for you any more. I don't think it's unreasonable for you to be expected to come up with a reasonable figure for the weight of an adult, so in the future, bear in mind that you may well be expected to use your common sense and knowledge to answer a question.
okay so what else should I memorise in preparation for questions like this? Average BMI of males and females and children? Babies too? And also average heights of males and females and etc? Average abdomen sizes too I guess.
Original post by tammie123
okay so what else should I memorise in preparation for questions like this? Average BMI of males and females and children? Babies too? And also average heights of males and females and etc? Average abdomen sizes too I guess.
It's not about coming up with a list of statistics to memorise, it's about knowing what you should be reasonably expected to know in your subject. It will completely depend on what subject you're studying. And you're not going to be expected to know these things precisely, just having a reasonable estimate is fine.
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by Plagioclase
It's not about coming up with a list of statistics to memorise, it's about knowing what you should be reasonably expected to know in your subject. It will completely depend on what subject you're studying. Having said that, knowing a rough average weight for an adult male is more common sense rather than subject-specific knowledge.
The thought did come to my mind to plug in a random number and say its the average weight of a male as I didn't know what the average was (I thought I would at least get marks for working out maybe) but then I thought would that be accurate enough for them and I was trying to see if I'm missing something. If my lecturer told us in the lectures that you could use average weight of a male or female during the lectures I feel that this question would be more reasonable.
Original post by tammie123
The thought did come to my mind to plug in a random number and say its the average weight of a male as I didn't know what the average was (I thought I would at least get marks for working out maybe) but then I thought would that be accurate enough for them and I was trying to see if I'm missing something. If my lecturer told us in the lectures that you could use average weight of a male or female during the lectures I feel that this question would be more reasonable.
Why didn't you use your own weight? This is what I would have done and said 'Using the weight of a random person' ...
Original post by tammie123
The thought did come to my mind to plug in a random number and say its the average weight of a male as I didn't know what the average was (I thought I would at least get marks for working out maybe) but then I thought would that be accurate enough for them and I was trying to see if I'm missing something. If my lecturer told us in the lectures that you could use average weight of a male or female during the lectures I feel that this question would be more reasonable.
Sorry but are you seriously saying that you have absolutely no idea what the weight of an average adult male is? You're not going to be expected to know it to the nearest 0.1Kg, but it is absolutely reasonable to expect you to have a rough idea of what it is.
Original post by Muttley79
Why didn't you use your own weight? This is what I would have done and said 'Using the weight of a random person' ...
Perhaps youre right, I trusted my lecturers not to leave out something important like this so I assumed there was nothing wrong with the question and was trying to see if I could figure it out
Original post by tammie123
Perhaps youre right, I trusted my lecturers not to leave out something important like this so I assumed there was nothing wrong with the question and was trying to see if I could figure it out
Look, I'm not blaming you for what happened, but the least you can do is learn from it. The fact that you're still saying that there was something wrong with the question implies that you've not learned from it, and that the exact same thing could happen again in the future. There was nothing wrong with the question. Exams are supposed to be a test of how you can think, not how you can mindlessly apply formulae that you've learned. It was a completely reasonable expectation to assume that you'd be able to come up with a reasonable figure for the weight of an adult, and similar things can (and will) come up again.
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