Exam Marking

Keywords: teaching.

I've just finished a twice-yearly ordeal, a sadistic rite of passage, that would test the endurance of a Hercules and the sangfroid of a Gandhi. Of course, I am referring to the living nightmare that is exam marking.

The worst part about exam marking, at least for the computer scientist, is the sneaking suspicion that it could all be automated, or possibly performed by suitably trained chimpanzees. The memory that lingers longest after the marking has been completed is the mind-numbing repetitiveness of the task. I feel like I've just spent an entire week repeatedly writing the same score (8/10), and the same cryptic explanation of the coding mistake (use if not while).

Contrary to popular belief, the best part about marking is coming across the 'stinkers' the papers written by people with absolutely no clue about what is going on. Naturally, there are very few such people in my excellently taught classes (job safety clause #2).

Over the years, I've collected a couple of prime examples of 'stinkers', and I'd like to share them with you.

We've all marked papers where the answers were written in a random order, and where there were several versions of each answer to choose from. Also common is the solution which snakes around the edge of the page, up the right hand side and, with the aid of an arrow (or two), leaps over to the other side of the sheet. But have you come across an answer that was written upside down? Students always like to revisit their successes, and so a few teachers have reported seeing the same answer given for two different questions. Some students are in awe of their lecturers, which might explain why they occasionally answer a question by writing out that question in their booklets. Undoubtedly some of us have come across poems, perhaps cartoons, but what about a human figure cut out of the page? An interesting answer book was the one that was empty except for the hastily scrawled sentence on the first page: 'Couldn't complete the exam, ran out of time.' Some students are gluttons for punishment one going so far as to sit the exam, but not bothering to register for the subject.

Andrew Davison