Thursday, November 4, 2010

Phailblog part II

I administered a test a couple days ago on Newton's Laws to my two Pre-AP physics classes. 50 questions, mostly conceptual, some free body diagrams, etc. The class averages were 69 and 67. My two geniuses, whose tests I frequently use to double check my own answers, both got 88's. This was obviously a very challenging test.
Well, today, I had two students who were absent on test day, so I had them sit in the hall and finish their tests while my other students corrected theirs. My first mistake. When the two students finished, I graded their tests immediately so they could get caught up on their corrections. On the first test, I noticed many many eraser marks on the scan tron. To my surprise, the student only missed 4 answers which equated to a 92...4 points higher than my genius's. The other student got an 84...The first student had previous tests scores around 80s and the second student 70s...This was very alarming, but I didn't raise any accusations just yet. After class ended, I didn't want my geniuses feeling a sense of injustice, so I began my investigation. As a former student and quite good in the art of deception and manipulation, I knew that getting every answer right would raise many many flags, so there must be some decoy answers to throw off the scent. On the 92 test, I looked at the first wrong answer. Question number 14, the student selected D. That is all fine and dandy until I looked at what the question was asking...Unfortunately for this student...question 14 only had two answer choices...and D was not one of them. Interesting. At this point, I looked over at the other student's test in search of dummy questions. Lo and behold, questions 16 and 17, both questions with only A and B as choices, had been marked D. SRSLY?! Now surely, this could not be a simple mistake. I believe these students' actual folly was mistaking me for a decent human being. I am absolutely not. I am devious, I am petty, I am incredibly trifling. I am a physics teacher, and in addition to teaching physics, I teach humility, and I am not above taking these two suckaz down a notch. You can NOT play a player. Luckily, I have a meeting with an assistant principal tomorrow, and I will gleefully bring this matter to light. Nothing annoys me more than poor attempts at cheating. Do it right or don't do it at all.

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