<p>In my o-chem class my professor really ****ed me off today.</p>
<p>We had an exam and in our last class meeting he told us a few specific things (certain mechanisms) that we would HAVE to study bc they were guaranteed to be on the exam. So I devote 80% of my time to studying the mechanisms and guess what happens on the exam? He seriously put ONE mechanism question (when he told us there would be about 5-6 specific ones that would be on it). So I ended up neglecting other parts of the chapter to study for them because he told us they would be on there no matter what. And mechanisms typically are worth the most amount of points so those are always a priority. </p>
<p>I've had plenty of professors who will tell you nothing about what to expect except what chapters you have covered and leave it up to you to figure out what to prioritize but for him to tell us what will be on it and then lie to us is totally wrong IMO. It would have been better if he didn't tell us that because then I would have at least spread out my time better.</p>
<p>Quite honestly, I see no issue in this. Maybe he was actually being nice because the same concepts will come up later, but if you didn’t study the entire chapter, it’s your fault.</p>
<p>Maybe he wanted to separate the students who are learning for the exam from the students who are sincerely interested in the material?</p>
<p>Maybe he changed his mind? (due to time constraints, students having a hard time with some of the concepts initially meant to be on the exam, whatever)</p>
<p>Lesson learned: professors shouldn’t go into details about the structure or content of an exam. It doesn’t benefit students and creates frustration when the actual exam does not look exactly as promised.</p>
<p>Which is exactly what I said at the end of my post.</p>
<p>He TOLD us that we would see those mechanisms on the exam and they weren’t. That is LYING. It’s simple as that. He didn’t say “You may or may not see these on the exam” he told us to make sure we knew them because would have to write out the mechanisms for them. </p>
<p>If he had made no guarantees about what the exam would consist of I would have no problem with it but that’s not what happened.</p>
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<p>Go ahead and put yourself in the same situation. Your professor tells you that you’re going to have a test tomorrow on the first 100 pages of your text book but most of the test will involve just contents from the last 10 pages. You take the test and realize only a small portion of the test is from the final 10 pages. So is it now in the professors job description to trick and deceive students? Dunno what you’re used to.</p>
<p>Oh and I did study all three chapters that he tested on, but I think it’s pretty common knowledge to everyone that you prioritize. Put more time and effort into the things that you think will be more important to know for the exam.</p>
<p>So what? He changed his mind. Guess what? People do that. Get used to it. Next time, study everything that way you can’t blame the professor because you under prepared. Guess what else? It was still your fault this time because you chose to neglect some of what you’re SUPPOSED to learn. Oh well.</p>
<p>“Ok class tomorrows test will be on the second half of chapter 1, don’t worry about the 1st half”</p>
<p>next day</p>
<p>“Oops did I say only the 2nd half? I changed my mind, it’s on both”</p>
<p>Do you realize how dumb your logic sounds? </p>
<p>If he hadn’t TOLD US what was going to be stressed on the exam then I would have utilized my time differently. But based on the information he gave us I PRIORITIZED. </p>
<p>I dunno maybe when this happens to you one day you’ll understand.</p>
<p>^^ No, actually be like him saying “There will be a lot of the 2nd half of chapter 1.” And then having a lot of the first half of chapter one. Therefore you should have studied the whole chapter. He didn’t say that was ALL that was on the test now did he? THAT would be lying.</p>
<p>Either way you put it it’s still lying. People have a limited amount of time. No one is going to dedicate an excess amount of time to something if it’s not necessary, by him telling us what was important to study and then completely going in the opposite direction (essentially make it NOT important) is a question of his ethics.</p>
<p>The important thing is that you learn the material. It seems to me that you took the “cram and regurgitate for the test” method, which is definitely more stressful and work-intensive, especially in a class like orgo.</p>
<p>To be fair, your professor said something misleading (whether it was intentional or not), but there is nothing that says s/he has to make the test exactly like what was said in class. Plus, s/he still tested you on material you should have learned, so I don’t see the issue.</p>
<p>For the future, study the material every day, in smaller pieces. It makes that class go by much easier. And guess what? You might even learn the material better so that you’ll be better prepared for the test.</p>
<p>It’s pretty clear that the teacher is in the wrong to some degree. A guarantee is a guarantee and any subsequent changes to the original promise should be publicly stated.</p>
<p>I think people are being blinded by the fact that the OP made a silly decision to only study the “guaranteed” parts. The OP is also to blame for not doing well on the exam, but clearly the teacher did do something wrong.</p>
<p>The thing is that I DIDN’T cram for this test! I gave myself about 3 days for content review and all of yesterday doing tons of practice problems, I was adequately prepared for the stuff that was supposed to be tough. And it’s not like I ignored the other stuff, I still studied it but I didn’t grind it into my brain (another thing is that he also told us that certain stuff wouldn’t be stressed very much at all). </p>
<p>Oh well, done talking about it. Just have to wait for my grade now. The funny thing is that I could literally either get an A or an F. There was a lot of multiple choice and each one is worth 3 points, so if I somehow guessed correctly on most of them then my grade won’t be too bad. Not likely though.</p>
<p>I think you should relax, I stressed out too after one of my really hard midterms, but realize that other people screwed up too. it’s not like hs where 70% is really bad; in college, a 70 is often an A. </p>
<p>yeah, your Prof sounds like an ass so just ignore him next time. also, often there’s multiple versions of the exam in large classes (my chem prof made 6 versions!) so maybe it was more emphasized on the other versions of the test? you never know.
I usually study the stuff they emphasize in lecture more, makes sense. but it’s good to know a little about everything.</p>
<p>While I agree your prof is slightly in the wrong (and in the future, shouldn’t make such garentees), a lot of this is your fault, because you clearly went about this the wrong way. Spending 80% of your time on the one thing he stressed? That’s not prioritizing, that’s bad studying, because that means you MUST have been neglecting something else. </p>
<p>If a prof tells me one thing will be particularly important on a test, I make sure I have that thing down cold – but I do, in fact, try to grind teh rest of it into my brain – at least enough that I would be able to answer multiple choice questions on it! The only time I don’t study something is if I am explicitly told it won’t be on the test.</p>
<p>You’re the only one who’s responsible for the grade you get. Read the chapter immediately after the test from the last chapter to get an early start, do your homework before you go to the lecture for that lesson, study everything intensely as you go, etc so that you’ll be ready for ANYTHING on the test. That’s what I do for my math class and I have an A (and I"m an English/Criminology major/Business minor who typically loathes math with a passion)</p>
<p>I think that’s very untrue. If the teacher tells you the quiz will cover chapter 1 and 2 but instead covers only chapter 3, then you have no control over your grade unless you are psychic. Similarly, if the test covers material not yet learned (does happen), you have no control over your grade.</p>
<p>The teacher though did say that 5-6 questions was on mechanism, and I’m assuming that this test was not 5-6 questions long which means that you are expected to know the other material just as well as mechanism so you should have been prepared anyways. Next time, don’t study to the test, make sure you know everything because that’s why you’re in college anyways, to learn the material, not to learn enough to pass the test.</p>