Friday, February 02, 2007

Tales from the First Exam

Gave the first exam today in the gen-ed class.

Of the 37 students enrolled in my class, 32 of them took the exam. That is, only 86% of my class took the exam.

Let's compare this to freshman English. Almost 88% of students pass freshman English. If I want my pass rates to compare favorably to the English department, I'd have to pass every student who took my exam.

Unfortunately, a few students left most of the exam blank. Many others were unable to write the number 28 as the product of prime numbers (one wrote 14+14). Somebody thought that the fraction 5/7 is a prime number. Others were unable to answer the question that I emailed to the class on Wednesday, telling them that it was going to be on the exam.

Makes it hard to pass them.