I really don't know how some students do it...

I really felt like strangling a few of the students today. I'm pretty much in charge of marking the engineering, part 1B experiment 21. This experiment is a long experiment. Hence, the special markup session where I get to wring them to see if they've actually understood the material and of course to illustrate a few points that the experiment is trying to show.

It started off fairly well. Although my first group did not manage to answer any of my questions initially, they were able to with some poking and prodding. They even investigated something extra that wasn't part of the experiment. Though they were a bit confused by the result, I managed to get them to explain to me why they got what they got by prodding. The next two groups were only mediocre and so I gave them the standard credit.

Then, I got the next two groups. For many moments, I was contemplating on whether to give them standard credit or not. I could be a mean bastard and just fail them on the experiment. But in the end I thought, what's the point. They did do the experiment. However, not only did they fail to understand the experiment, I couldn't fathom how they had managed to pass part 1A! There is no excuse to not know the *types* of electrical impedances! And after I give them one of the types, they still don't know the other two! Come on!

It's not like I ask super duper out of this world questions. I only ask them questions with the answers in the lab hand-out. If they cannot even take the time to read the 5 page hand-out, I don't know how they possibly survive in the work place. Most of them just try to waffle their way through, but my waffle radar is usually on. So, I just say: "That's Waffle". The fact that they couldn't even give me a single word answer after 10 minutes of poking and prodding and even after i'd already given them the answer, is just plain mind-boggling.

Okay, any other idiots that I meet in the future are going to fail. I will be evil. I will ask them how many marks they want. Whatever it is that they tell me, I will first laugh, then fail them. At least get myself some perverse form of satisfaction after all the stress I get as a result of the self control that I assert to keep myself from strangling them. Some of the kids here are inexcusable. There, I've said it.

* image gotten off wikipedia *