<p>My introductory chemistry professor has a habit of giving the class long tests that most people don't finish within the class time. As a result, he ends up giving a huge curve to the class at the end of the quarter. For example, on the last midterm, 11/354 students got more than 80% on the test..... I got a 67% and truly feel like I did fail since I'm still not used to huge grading curves in college.</p>
<p>What should I do to better prepare for the next test now that I know that my professor likes to make his tests this way? I did a bunch of practice problems before the last test but there were too many calculations to do so I couldn't finish and had to guess on a bunch of questions. The whole test is multiple-choice by the way. I'd say that 1/4 of the questions were conceptual and the rest required numerous calculations.</p>
<p>One of my roommates had an O-chem professor last year who gave 10-page tests for a 50 minute class, and how she said she got A’s on those tests was that she would time herself when going over the practice tests that her professor posted on the class site so that she could keep track of her progress and see what problems would take up the most of her time so that on the actual exams, she would be able to assess which problems to work on first so that she can finish the ones that take her the least amount of time at the end.</p>
<p>Are some questions worth more than others? If I know that some questions are worth more, I’ll start with those. Taking time to answer a bunch of multiple choice, low-point questions to a waste of time if you have short answer or essay questions that are often worth a lot more points. Also, if you run out of time, you can always just fill in random bubbles at the end, which you can’t do with short answer.</p>
<p>All of his tests are multiple choice and some questions are worth more than others but the test doesn’t indicate anything about that. I also realize that the “professor” isn’t actually an established professor, but a first-year instructor in chemistry. So that complicates things a bit.</p>
<p>When I take tests, I go through the test and get all the ‘easy’ questions first. My idea is to make sure that I get the most questions done in the shortest period of time, and then I am able to go back through and spend time on multi-step calculations and things. So in this case, first time through, try doing the conceptual ones and fairly easy calculation ones.</p>
<p>The other thing is that if he gives huge curves, it may actually be that he doesn’t expect you to finish in the amount of time he gives, hence the curves. A 67 might very well be ‘doing well’ in the context of the class, and whiel I agree you should try hard, don’t kill yourself doing the impossible. I would also ask your professor for tips he may have and share your thoughts-- as a first-year instructor, he may be trying out different things, and you’d be surprised at how few students, even in large sections, see instructors during office hours. </p>
<p>Last semester, I had a linear professor who had been teaching for years and years, and the general departmental consensus was that his tests were impossibly long and weighted. I, and a few others, went and talked to him about the exams (which I did well on, don’t get me wrong), and this semester, his class is structured totally differently. Was it just the students? Probably not. But was our input helpful (in a totally respectful way)? Yes.</p>