I am a raging cloud on unrestrainable fury right now. I had one exam. Just one lousy fucking Latin CBE (Credit By Exam - in place of taking the actual course, take a comprehensive final exam) was all I needed to graduate from Kent State. I studied the chapters he told me to in his e-mail. I was ready. I was psyched. I was so excited to be finished. I walked into the classroom to take the test…
Deponent verbs? What the fuck? That was in the next fucking chapter! I don’t recognize half this vocabulary! Motherfucking ass-rape me with a bloody briar bush and mount me on a wall!
So it turns out he e-mailed me the wrong chapters - I was supposed to study through chapter 38, not chapter 35. Of course, the whole time I’m taking the exam I’m assuming I must have read it wrong, and just hoping like hell I can get the 70% I need to pass. If I don’t pass, I’ll have to pay another $120, study some more, and take the damn thing again.
I just e-mailed him. He damn well better grade it as if I was only supposed to have read through chapter 35, or let me retake the damn thing without reporting the results of the first one to the college, so I won’t have to pay for a second go-around…
Latin is a language
As dead as dead can be
It killed off all the Romans
And now it’s killing me!
Best of luck, Hugh. I sincerely hope your prof. comes around. OTOH (since this is the Pit), fucko off for making me remember the horror of deponents and semi-deponents!
I feel your pain and hope he’ll do the right thing.
I am deponent, lacking the requi-
site participles, passive in form.
So I’ll lie here and commit non sequi
-tur, -mur, mini, -nturs.
Though not deformed,
I may be defective, yeah yeah baby
why won’t you conjugate with me tonight?
Phonetically speaking, hey, bilabi
-al stops or fricatives would be all right.
Oh, you can put your ille by my hic
no one will parse us, I’m heteroclite.
My sibilants ought to be rhotacized
something’s wrong when they’re intervocalic;
make me a liquid, baby, fantasize
my glottals stopping in your arms tonight.
That would piss me off too. Finals are bad enough. I’m currently flipping out on my philosophy and sociology studying. If he was responsible for telling you what chapters to study and he was wrong, then it’s on him and he should grade what he told you. God I hate this time of year.
Taking a (possibly less popular) different slant on this:
Why are you asking the prof to e-mail you what chapters to study on a final cumulative exam?
Doesn’t the syllabus cover this?
Doesn’t the course content cover this?
Why would poor performance on only 3 out of 38 cumulative chapters cause you to fail, as this is only about 8% of the content.
The professor needs to take responsibility for his / her error, but if you saved the email and can talk to the department chair, it shouldn’t be a problem. I do have to ask, though — why leave this particular requirement until May of your last term?
I always used to ask on the first day of classes if there was a comprehensive final exam, or if, like in most courses, comprehension was not required. The professors were usually aggravated by this, but it amused me, and wasn’t that what we were all there for?
Wait a minute - you’re pitting someone before you know whether they are going to make it right? If the prof passes you on the exam, are you going to un-pit him?
Dare I ask whether your email to him was a blast of flame calculated to piss him off, or did you actually give the guy a chance to correct his mistake?
I’d like to pit students who rant and rave instead of acting like adults and dealing with the situation. This would have warranted a polite email to your professor, pointing out the mistake. You have to assume that he acted in good faith, and he would most likely try to correct his error in some way.
Once you’ve done that, if his response isn’t satisfactory, find out what other options you have.
I assume that you’re young and hotheaded, and only posted this in the heat of the moment.
By this reasoning, we pretty much can’t pit anything, because we don’t know whether the target of the thread will eventually make itself right or less objectionable.
The prof screwed up, and now the OP’s grades and graduation are on the line. I think this is a reasonable basis for a thread.
Seems to me the OP did email the professor and found his answer unsatisfactory, since he knows why he wasn’t fully prepared and what he’ll have to do if he doesn’t score well.
I e-mailed the professor prior to posting my OP. My e-mail to him was very cordial: I copied the message in which he related the incorrect information and respectfully asked that he either grade the exam with that missed information in mind, or allow me to retake the exam without reporting the results of the first time around to the school, thus saving me the $120.
I posted here because I needed to vent, and it would have been out of line for me to vent at him, and would have made a favorable outcome less likely.
As far as why those three chapters are important, a large portion of the test is translation of a passage that was a part of the assigned chapters. As the test is intended to determine whether you understand the language at a high enough level to pass the class without actually taking it, this passage was from the final chapter I was expected to have studied. So in addition to quite a bit of vocabulary I was unfamiliar with and quite a few “conjugate this verb” questions that included deponents, 30% of the exam was based on comprehension, analysis and translation of what was supposed to have been a familiar passage. Additionally, “through chapter 38” should actually be “from chapter 21 to chapter 38.” So not 8% of the content - about 17%, which could easily be the difference between a 86% passing grade and a 69% failing. I’d studied enough to know I would at least have the 70% needed to pass (CBEs are pass/fail, so I wasn’t going for a perfect score) but hadn’t expected I would need 17% buffer space.
Yes, I procrastinated on taking the exam, but I’d done the studying necessary to pass, so what does that matter? In fact, I think there’s a good chance I passed in spite of this screw-up. It only took me a day and a half of studying to be prepared for what I thought I needed to know. I would have started studying over the weekend if I’d been properly informed.
Anyone else here want to lay the blame on me? Go for it.
I did something like this when I was a Senior, I had two classes left to take during the summer: Linear Algebra and a general life science requirement. I found out two weeks before graduation I didn’t have to take Linear Algebra, soon afterwards I found out that the biology department would offer me a special sitting of their placement test to get out of the life science requirement. I studied freshman bio for a week straight, passed, and graduated in May.
I’m kinda with MoodIndigo1, give the guy a chance to fix it first. I know your just venting and all, but the worst case is you spend another $120 and retake the test, its not the end of the world. Just write it off as another higher education expense, I’m sure this isn’t even 1% of what you’ve spent at college.
Oh, I fully intend to give him the chance to fix it, and it’s** not** the end of the world. Of course it’s not. If he doesn’t pass me and I have to take it again, I will go through the proper channels to ensure I don’t have to pay a second time; I have his e-mail on file.
Regardless of how this turns out, I walk for graduation on Saturday. I was just really looking forward to hearing “pending completion of all requirements” and knowing that all of mine were already complete.
Seems that the threshold for a valid Pitting is getting higher all the time. It sounds as if the OP did what he needed to do, and the prof goofed up on his end. Getting shirty when one’s graduation is fair game if you ask me.
FWIW, Hugh Mongoose, I wouldn’t think the prof would want to have a miscommunication or error prevent you from graduating. I’m hoping that your e-mail will bring a good response from him. Lesson learned and all that. (I’m probably sympathetic because of my own experience taking CBE courses, and waiting until the end of the semester to take the blasted tests.)
To be honest, the professor genuinely seems like a really nice guy - you’ll note that I didn’t call him any mean names. Yes, I’m frustrated by what happened. The mistake was his, and I think anyone would be hard pressed to disagree with me on that… but if he does what needs to be done to set things right, I’m more than willing to forgive that mistake.
p.s. Caling the pit-ee a “really nice guy” seems far too warm and fuzzy, so… FUCK!
Uh, last I checked, this is the Pit. Hugh is venting, appropriately, in the Pit. He didn’t vent at his professor. I see no problem here, and certainly don’t blame him for being frustrated.
Hugh, best of luck in working it out with the prof.
FWIW, I took three years of Latin in high school, and I don’t recall anything referenced in this thread other than the poem Queen Bruin recited – a poem I’m certain I’ll be able to spit out spontaneously on my death bed. Thank you, Father MacDonald.