Finals will be in a couple weeks

11 Responses to Finals will be in a couple weeks

1. DirtCrashr says:

   February 13, 2012 at 10:49 am

   Math? What? Nobody said there would be math! I failed pre-calculus at UCSC, twice…
2. Barron Barnett says:

   February 13, 2012 at 12:23 pm

   I hated some of my EE profs. No calculators allowed, I bring my slide rule and am told its unfair because none of the other students have them. I ask why not, they were told at the beginning of the semester that electronic calculators aren’t allowed on tests.

   For the most part you didn’t really need a calculator to find the answer, though it was handy to use it for the final simplification. I got docked points more than once because I didn’t simplify the answer far enough.

   I would like to point out they still had the computer though on final. It’s just that they kept getting an error for a buffer overflow. The radar unit was updating too fast for the system to correctly handle in the computer. It was still running though.

   Also, that was on Apollo 11, IIRC they fixed it by Apollo 12. That appears to be 15, 16 or 17 by the presence of the rover. Don’t ask how I knew that off the top of my head, (lets just say this is one of many reasons I became an engineer).
3. Mad Rocket Scientist says:

   February 13, 2012 at 4:38 pm

   I hated not being permitted calculators for my math exams. There is no conceivable reason an engineer fresh out of college would need to be able to solve complex math in their head with nothing more than a pencil & scratch paper.
4. Rolf says:

   February 13, 2012 at 9:34 pm

   It’s not so much that you have to be able to do it long-hand, as that if the right sorts of problems and questions are being used, it gives much better evidence that you actually know and can apply the underlying concepts.

   When I taught physics for a year, if I’d let them use calculators, their scores went down because they’d just plug the number into some random equation they (or more likely, someone else) had programmed in and write down the answer; if they had to show their work and do it long-hand, then they were much less likely to give a totally off-the-wall answer with no idea how they came to that number later, because they had to think it through.
5. DirtCrashr says:

   February 14, 2012 at 9:18 am

   Not being any good at math I tended to the social analysis, but not being any good at that either I still… hey…Liebster, baby! http://anthroblogogy.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-funny-valentineses.html
6. Mad Rocket Scientist says:

   February 14, 2012 at 10:54 am

   That’s exactly my point, a calculator doesn’t let you cheat, if you don’t know how to work the problem, you are screwed. It does, however, help you avoid stupid math errors that you make while working under an artificial time crunch, & then lose points for.

   The number of exams where I had the solution algorithm correct, but I missed a simple math boo-boo…
7. Bram says:

   February 14, 2012 at 11:47 am

   The absolute worst test I ever had were open-book, calculator permitted. I still have nightmares about a Statistics final.
8. Rolf says:

   February 14, 2012 at 12:33 pm

   Bram – yup. Absolutely. *EVERYTHING* is on the table then, and questions are not likely to be simple look-up-the-fact regurgitation.

   Of course, one time I took a history class where the prof passed out the mid-term on the first day – pick from a list of essay question, write a paper, turn it in when you thought it was ready: no guidelines on length or references or anything. When you turned it in, he’d give you the final, same format. The longest one turned in was 70 pages, double-spaced, narrow margins, by and old retired guy only taking that one class. I have to admit that was a hard class to gauge.
9. Mad Rocket Scientist says:

   February 14, 2012 at 7:58 pm

   My favorite exam ever was open book, open notes, take it home, you have 24 hours. It was an advanced kinematics course with lots of linear algebra & coordinate transforms to define the movement of linkages. 4 questions, show all your work.

   Aced that bitch.
10. Phil says:

    February 15, 2012 at 7:29 am

    Well, I’m glad I could give the math nerds something to make me feel inferior about.
11. Windy Wilson says:

    February 23, 2012 at 10:30 am

    I am not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV. I was a business major and became a manpower planner. I never really trusted the calculator after the battery went too low during a test and produced gibberish. I wasn’t watching, so I repeated the gibberish.
    To my credit, though, one time I was surprised by a test and did not have a calculator, so I used fractions, converting to decimals at the very end. Got an “A”, too (The instructor offered to loan me a calculator and I refused).

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