<p>I just had my chem mid term today and I probably did awful. And I studied my ass off for the last week, doing all the problems in the book, doing all the old tests from the prof's website that SHE recommends, reading the text. And when I get to the exam, none of that was applicable. It was like I was doing completely different material. It just doesn't make sense. How can you test people on material that they won't ever come across unless they break into her office and look at the tests? I was looking around at everyone else's tests and A LOT of people left entire pages blank because they had no idea what to do. I probably did better than the class average but the curve will still probably put me in the high C range.</p>
<p>Professors can do pretty much whatever they want to do. Try checking out professors' reputations before signing up. Give the professor an honest (bad) review.</p>
<p>Talk to her during office hours and see what she suggests. Tell her what you just told us and maybe she'll have some better ideas for how you can study for the final. It doesn't really help to complain about her here, but if you talk to your professor (in a respectful manner), perhaps she'll be able to help you.</p>
<p>Sounds like math in our high school.......</p>
<p>They can do whatever they like. Like someone else said, go talk to her and just say "Hey I didn't do too well on the last test despite using all the study sources you recommended. Do you have any other resources that could possibly help me in the future?"</p>
<p>Take solace in the fact that the exam was probably impossible for everyone =P</p>
<p>Oh, and welcome to college</p>
<p>your supposed to take what you learn and use it in other situations that you havent encountered before</p>
<p>this isnt highschool where all you do is regurgitate what you hear. you need to apply in new, unique situations to really prove you KNOW how things work and why</p>
<p>i think its completely fair. this is why college degrees are looked upon with much more respect than a highschool diploma. to get a college degree in science, you really do need to know your stuff backwards and forwards. in highschool chem all you had to do was memorize a few equations and just trust that they worked. knowing why and how didnt matter.</p>
<p>when studying dont just mindlessly work on the problems. think about why they work, if there are any other approaches or substitutes you could use to get to the same answer. see how things relate to one another. make connections.</p>
<p>Professors can do whatever they want, but if everyone fails that doesn't look good for the professor. Perhaps this exam will be curved more than you expect, which is definitely possible in the hard sciences. For my chem class, a 63 on the second midterm would give you a B-.</p>
<p>Definetly talk to the teacher. Does the professor curve? Because I can't imagine anyone doing well if the professor's exams are as incoherent as you depict. </p>
<p>Sounds like the typical liberal professor who got his/her job through affirmitive action and does not have the intellecutal capacity to teach the class in the first place.</p>
<p>Yes, it's fair. This isn't high school.</p>
<p>God forbid you get an exam that asks you to do something more than simply regurgitate some memorized material. </p>
<p>If you truly know the material, then you should be able to apply your knowledge to these 'curve balls' thrown on such exams to solve the problems. If you simply memorized how to do the practice problems then yes, of course, you'll struggle. </p>
<p>Sounds like this prof wants to make sure that those that do well are the ones that really know the material... and that sounds like they're just doing exactly what they're supposed to do.</p>
<p>While I agree with what the posters said above-the difficulty of tests is the professor's prerogative, I do have to say that it sounds like this test was unbalanced. </p>
<p>Usually, tests are a mix of familiar problems and new problems. Teachers use the latter type of problems to differentiate between the students who truly understood the material and the students who merely have a rudimentary understanding. Thus, just reading the materials and doing the practice problems might get you a C whereas the the rest of the points will need to come from actually applying the concepts. </p>
<p>In this case, it is entirely possible that the teacher went a bit overboard with the application type questions. If you feel that's the case, talk to her to clarify what her expectations are and what she thinks one needs to do to do well in the class. Also express your concerns (in a repectful manner) about the difficulty of the test.</p>
<p>It all depends what the professor wants you to learn. As has been said, giving application types of problems and other things you have not seen before stretches you and tests your ability to figure things out on your own, applying concepts to new problems -- much like the real world. It's a VERY important skill to have. High school classes are supposed to develop those skills so you'll be ready to use them in college or the workforce. Even the most basic jobs out of HS, a trade school, or college aren't going to give you cookie cutter approaches and problems to solve. If they had such solutions, they'd hire a monkey or program a computer in your place!</p>
<p>As far as "balanced" tests go, I don't really think any problems have to be "familiar," although if a professor is going to do a lot of applied or more complex problems, they ought to give you problems requiring similar skills at least a few times in lecture so you know what to be looking for. I took a 200-level physics course for pre-med majors in which the professor gave tests consisting of 6 problems -- 4 multiple choice conceptual problems involving critical thinking and modeling of an unspecified physics problem to figure out what would occur in a given situation or cause something to happen (10% each) and 2 applied, real-world problems requiring specific understanding of each concept and equation learned up to that point and how to apply them in order to, for example, determine energy output of the system or force necesary to achieve something, etc. (30% each) The idea was to "think like a physicist or an engineer" but it was for pre-med and allied health majors, which made it more of a GenEd. A lot of students complained and so forth but in reality, it was a good course, considering what they want to do and the critical thinking and creativity skills they will need.</p>
<p>It depends on the scenario. </p>
<p>If you haven't covered the material at all, nor is relevant to your class or instruction level: for (an extreme) example, she's teaching French and you're being tested on Arabic, then no, it's not fair.</p>
<p>However, if it's information that it's assumed you've reviewed - like she assigned reading for chapters 1-5 and then only covers chapter 3 in class, then you should still know the rest of the chapters, not just 3.</p>
<p>If you're truly convinced she isn't being fair, first speak with her. If that doesn't help you can always challenge your grade, however, the more students who support your claim, the more likely you can get results.</p>
<p>Welcome to college. It is seldom fair. One of the courses I am currently taking is a 101 (which I have to take as a sophomore transfer) and it is more difficult than the 200 level courses I took at my previous college (which had what was considered one of the top programs). I am at around an 80% in the class, and struggling to get 70's. I get the same grades when I study for two or three days, as when I review for 20 minutes and don't care. Some professors are stuck in their way and (esp. if they are tenured) there is not much you can do. Talk to the professor, go to the tutoring center, etc. Do what you can to do as well as you can...but also realize that in college, getting straight A's is extremely difficult. Not so hard in high school, but it is far more difficult to be perfect in a college setting. So, try your hardest, and Good Luck!:)</p>
<p>that doesn't sound like a typical test a college. in most classes you can take the material you learned and apply it on the test in some shape or form. i have yet to encounter a professor who has given an exam where none of the questions dealt with what was taught in the lectures. my guess is that you probably didn't get the material as well as you thought you did. Or perhaps the professor is a tough grader.</p>
<p>Are you pre-med, apumic?</p>
<p>My chem tests were like this, only not curved! The advice I (and everyone else I've talked to who's ever gone in for help in that class) received? "Do the homework." "I DO do the homework!" "Do the homework." Very unhelpful...</p>
<p>The problem with balance that I was alluding to was the fact that it is usually impossible to test application of the concepts taught thoroughly in the short time frame usually given for tests. Thus, for the teacher to gauge how well a student is learning while at the same time test a sufficiently broad spectrum of the materials taught require a balance of familiar problems and new application based problems.</p>
<p>No. I did some of the pre-med coursework and considered medicine -- specifically psychiatry(family's a medical family) -- but I actually prefer more than just med mgmt (e.g., assessment, therapies, etc.), so I intend to do my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and follow it with a Medical Psychology certificate, which will allow me to both prescribe/administer meds (like a psychiatrist) as well as do psych assessment (which only doctoral psychologists can do) and develop and implement interventions and therapies... best of both worlds...and my tuition/basic living expenses will be paid for by the schools I attend! (Meaning much less debt and about the same total number of yrs of education as for Child Psychiatry -- the subspecialty I'd do in Psychiatry)</p>
<p>wait...what??</p>
<p>"Sounds like the typical liberal professor who got his/her job through affirmitive action and does not have the intellecutal capacity to teach the class in the first place."</p>
<p>is this true?</p>
<p>Isn't Clinical Psych. RXP currently available in only a handful of states?</p>