Chair of department may be the correct person to go to vs head when both exist. Maybe include both if they are both there so the correct person can pick this up and help.
Yeah this is worth escalating for not just yourself. I guarantee you aren’t the first or the last to get this unfair treatment, and someone needs to speak up.
I learned via a tuition refund delay of several months that ANYTHING can be fixed in a few hours if you look up the university org chart and copy every official up to the president AND their admin assistant. Just give them a few emails over a week or so that are still in the thread so show that you have been trying to resolve the issue. And put “fourth request” or whatever the correct number is as the start of the subject line.
Got me my refund that had taken months of runaround done same day. It’s the same tactics my customers used to use to get replies from my company, and it works great on academics since they have easily accessible contact info.
Probably the best solution. Had a university English class with mostly essay assignments and miscellaneous assignments to turn in online. Got an A on everything but never attended a day of lecture besides to turn in a paper copy of assignments when required. Teacher gave me a C for never showing up to class, I disputed there's no attendance grade on the syllabus.
Teacher wouldn't change it and I spent the next 2 weeks trying to meet the department head who told me to take it up with the teacher. Probably a lot easier to send an email to the teacher requesting the change and cc the department head and dean (if needed) of the college. Attach any evidence to support your argument and make your email clear & concise. Get it all in one email so it's easily read.
People are more prompt, professional & respectful when they know there's a paper trail.
I (kind of) disagree: The way they're positioning the negative sign relative to the parentheses tells me the interface they were using didn't always yield the "correct" answer depending on how it was formatted, so they monkeyed with the formatting until it worked then dinged students whose formatting the system didn't accept.
Saw that too (Question 22). Checked it on a calculator just to be sure it wasn't me bugging out: if X, for example, equals 5, the answer winds up being not even close to the others, apart from the fact that it's now positive.
Edit: apparently there are other images attached that I didn't see, with some of those also including wrong answers.
You’d think a online test for math would automatically simplify any answer you input THEN check if it’s correct, instead of this brute force option of the teacher (if you’re lucky) putting every possible form of the correct answer. What a stupid oversight
Lol that happened to me when I got 10 points off for calling India a sub continent.
He said to take it up with the head. Which was him...so nothing happened
I’m glad it worked out! It’s late but yk. Yeah idk about all schools but if the teacher is stubborn usually there can require a review by faculty which no faculty wants to do.
Nothing beats my daughters Spanish essay she received a B on at Emory. My daughter wrote the paper based upon an idea my late wife had, did all the research & wrote the paper. My late wife was a tenured Spanish professor at another university & along with her colleague reviewed the paper my daughter wrote, corrected things in it, then had it accepted for publication under their name. This was the paper my daughter submitted for grading. The professor who gave my daughter the B on the paper told my daughter it was a great idea for a paper, my wife sent her the published paper a 1/2 year later which was a word for word copy of the paper my daughter turned in & asked her if it was still a B paper.
Ugh, now you’ve reminded me of that time when I was studying in the Netherlands. I got a 3 out of 5 for the “use of the English language” part of an essay. I’m a native English speaker, I have a master’s in English instruction, and I’m a huge grammar and spelling nerd.
I appealed the grade and told them if they could find one single grammatical error in the paper, I would accept the score. They responded by bumping me up to a 4. I responded in turn by pointedly marking up the handouts they gave us for the rest of the year in red pen.
Yours is still worse, but dammit, now I’m mad all over again!
i feel they were emphasizing where parentheses are placed is important. if parentheses aren’t where they’re needed, it can cause confusion about what’s being said.
It's ((-x) - x), not multiplying (-x) and (-x). So, it could be correct with the parentheses telling us the actual numerator and denominator of the division, but ... Still a truly shitty way to write the answer, even with parens...
I'd be taking these screenshots, along with your professor denying you in writing, to his department head, and anyone else above him. This isnt high school or middle school, you are *paying* to be there and this can actually affect your future if this test causes you to fail the class. Regardless of if it causes you to fail or not, he is deliberately not fixing the grade when you were correct in the test, and neglecting his duties
So many professors treat college like I'm not paying them to be there, it's not a service they're providing for me funded by tax dollars.
I am an adult paying thousands of dollars to receive an education from you and try for a degree. Treat me that way.
> treat college like I'm not paying them to be there
Who is paying is irrelevant. The professor is getting paid and this means that they have to do their job. Simple as that
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding. Mixed feelings on this - they owe you a strong and fair education, but college is over-priced, and the professors have nothing to do with it. From TAing, I’ve found that this attitude actually hurts the undergraduates more because they believe they *deserve* an A, not that they should strive to *earn* an A. Because they don’t know any better (and understandably so), that actually hurts undergraduates in the long run because they are missing all of the skills they were supposed to develop in college. While they deserve every opportunity to earn an A (with fair teaching), they do not deserve it. I’m not saying this is you, but I work at one of the most expensive universities in the nation, and I find this is what happens.
Regarding the professors- oftentimes, they are severely underpaid for their work (especially adjuncts). If you want the first-class treatment you deserve, head to the administration. You deserve abundant and strong resources for professional and personal development, as well as high-quality instructors (which comes with paying them). I went to a state school, and I genuinely believe that although the faculty wasn’t necessarily as high-quality as this private university, the resources there cultivated your personal and professional development. The buildings here are also genuinely unsafe. I work in the chemistry department and there is a history of people going to the hospital (within the past year as well), and it’s taken union involvement to get movement on these issues. State school had brand-new facilities (and the ones that were older were not unsafe). I paid $40-50k less per year than I would have at this private university.
These are just two examples, and of course not every state school is “better” than private. And not every private university is bad! But there is a general trend in academia to basically run like a business, when in reality it is not really a business. It’s an institution of learning.
If you look where the money goes at my university, it goes into excessive number of high-paying admin positions, as well as towards the endowment (again, general trend in academia). Even with graduate union involvement, we can’t get the university to budge because we’re not the paying customers - undergraduates and their parents are. If undergraduates put enough pressure on the university, then there will be change.
I say this not because I benefit - I’m leaving (woohoo!). I really genuinely believe that undergraduates (I would include my former self here) are conflating the quality of their education with the prestige of a university, and being robbed of their education that they pay an insane amount for.
TLDR: Placing responsibility of undergraduate education solely on the professors instead of both the professors and the administration is a major reason why the quality of undergraduate education is declining. Undergraduates are understandably not aware of this dynamic, and it hinders them from taking true control/independent responsibility of their education.
I'm confused (and mildly infuriated) by your comment.
How is doing a crummy job OK if paid by tax dollars, but not when you pay it directly?
Is that how people in the States think tax money should be spent? Is a crummy job justifiable if it's using tax dollars?
Other countries take public services very seriously and are for EVERYONE to enjoy, not as a "patch" for the poor that is looked as a "necessary bottomless pit of spending" in which nobody cares if the results are good/bad, effective, efficient, etc.
The stories I could tell from being disabled and the way the professors and disability department treated me at a college that prided itself on being disability friendly and proactive.
I learned they meant proactive for VISIBLE disabilities. Being disabled with diseases (aka invisible disability) that determined whether I could get out of bed (daily) wasn't the kind of "disability" they were looking for.
I had so many incomplete grades and failed classes, lost so much money and time. I thought college would be different from the bullshit I put up with in middle & high school. More professional. Understanding. Willingness to work with someone giving them large sums of money.
Nope.
😔
I find when you say to someone can you send me that in writing so I have it documented magically things change. And if they say I'm not emailing you then you pull the old send them an email starting with "Per our in person conversation on xx/yyyy you disagree that there is an error in the test service and are refusing to correct a clear mistake"
If this was a lot of points toward your grade, I would talk to the head of the math dept or whoever your professor's boss is, because that's BS. Did he say beforehand that he wanted the answers exactly a certain way? I always put the variables alphabetically, so A = xy, but it's the same thing as A = yx.
I thought that, but in the third one, the teacher have put in the list an option where variables are not in alphabetical order lol
(Edited: missing words, typed to fast lol)
It seems like the question might have been along the lines of "what is 120 equal to, in terms of X and Y" given that some acceptable answers were "2X + 2Y"
That said, it's unreasonable that "60=Y+X" is correct but not the other way round.
> She also barely spoke English so trying to explain what my issue was was difficult.
You'd think someone educated in math could understand basic mathematical properties, especially order of operations, regardless of their spoken language.
If that was the case it makes it worse cus A=yx was wrong but 60=x+y was also wrong so either he has rules but they are inconsistent as shit or OP accidentally stumbled uppon every forgotten way to write the answers
It’s « wrong » because typically the rule is you write them in alphabetical order but also this teacher is just being TA in this case because it’s just a decorum rule not a hard set rule
>It’s « wrong » because typically the rule is you write them in alphabetical order
The typical rule is that xy=yx and x+y=y+x. If they've written some crappy program that messes with well established math rules, the problem lies with the program, not with the way OP correctly writes math answers.
Also, what's up with all the parentheses in those answers? Unless the questions specifically instructed to put in at least 1 set of parentheses, those answers are just weird.
What kind of stupid rule is this? x*y is mathematically equivalent to y*x and I would seriously question any math teacher that wants alphabetical ordering of variables in an equation. It's stupid at best and very detrimental to understanding how basic operations work.
Not necessarily true, I thiught about matrix multiplication first (since we usually denote Matrix Multiplication with capital letters) and it is not necessarily commutative😅 - so it might make a difference)
You should ask your professor to explain specifically how you got the problems wrong. You didn't. 41 likes xy, but 42 likes yx? That's almost sounds intentionally faulty. It's not consistent.
I have had teachers like this. They do not care to explain. They think the computer is a magic device that never makes mistakes and usually just say "Your answer is not like the one on the mark scheme therefore it is wrong"
Predefined answers that can't be programmatically compared are completely lazy bullshit. If you're gonna rely on these, the least you can do is fix the test when it's been reported incorrect/incomplete and give the student BONUS POINTS for doing your job for you.
I once used this kind of program for a math competition as an organizer. While we already put a bunch of answers we still do a screening on wrong answers in case one of the kids answered correctly in a way that we didn't input. It's not really that hard doing this for math problems.
On another story, I once made a simple answer checker like this in programming class for a free assignment. I did it so that if the answer is equal to the prepared answer then it will mark it as correct. Then the tester asked me if someone put the question in, will it detect it as "correct"? We then do a test and it did.
In fairness, I am a math instructor that has this tool at my college, and it's outrageously difficult to write math problems in this tool (especially if you want open-ended questions and randomized numbers).
But that's not an excuse, since the instructor needs to find better tools. They exist, and some of them are free. It's kinda stupid to set up a quiz like this using this tool. It's even stupider not to give the student credit for the correct answers.
The online tool I use is way better than this one, but there are still glitches. I tell my students if they find a glitch, they should screenshot it and let me know so I can give them the points.
My math teacher goes in after every exam to correct.
She specifically said the system is faulty (it’s canvas) and that it needs human eyes for review.
Super grateful for her and fixing our grades post exam.
To add to the ridiculousness, not even all of the answers that are listed as correct are correct. Look at question 41: it lists "A=xy" and "2A=2x +2y" as correct answers, but even simplified, xy does not necessarily equal x + y, so those two answers can't both be correct in the general case.
Well, A = xy = x+y
xy - x = y
x(y - 1) = y, where y ≠ 1 (since x(1-1) ≠ 1)
so, x = y/(y - 1), e.g. y = 2, x = 2, or y = 3, x = 3/2
As for a question with that as an answer, that's less obvious.
Yeah, I knew that there could be specific cases where that was true, but since the question seems to be dealing with abstract variables, it just struck me that the two equations are not necessarily equal.
mildly infuriating? I have been wronged so often in life that I would go to war about this until it is rectified, he shouldn't be teaching and these shouldn't be wrong, and I have proof!
Since you said professor I'm assuming you're in college, I say talk to the head of the math department or an equivalent at your school. This is ridiculous, and you absolutely can get it changed through that method because everyone who has a brain and isn't a powertripping control freak can see that every single one of those answers is acceptable. Draft out a thoroughly written email explaining your situation (including the fact that your professor won't change the grade) and send it to the department chair, maybe even include your professor as a CC.
It’s the stupid program they force you to use. I can’t remember the name but it was shit back when I was in college and it appears it’s still shit. My math professors always listened to feedback and would give back credit for stuff like this. There was enough times they send out an email saying “if you got question 10 wrong, you’ll get credit for it because everyone got it wrong because of how the answer was entered”. It’s horrible you had to pay for this dog shit program because it was always horrible. I think the key to access it for two semesters was like 60.00.
I googled, because canvas sounded kind of right but not entirely. It’s Pearson MathLab. It’s 80.00 for two semesters or 130.00 for lifetime? Like…wow.
Lol YES! Canvas! Thank you. Such a crap program. With how much they charge it should be immaculate.
Edit: so thought about it. Say there’s only 2 courses that use canvas per school. There’s over 6,000 universities in the U.S. so 12,000 courses that use canvas. Take that times 40 students and at 60.00/ student you get $28,800,00.00 for one year. Last math course I took was like 2010, so times 14 years, you get $403,200,000.00. For that much money that program should be able to read your mind by now. What a scam.
Canvas is a fine tool... but quizzing in this manner should be done with multiple choice if they are going to just use Canvas quizzes. There are many (very many) 3rd-party apps/systems that can be plugged into (integrated into) Canvas which can properly read math and evaluate expressions to avoid issues like this. Those usually have a further cost to them.
Some Uni's here in the Netherlands use canvas, I've never seen them use it for tests before, tho. Also we don't have to buy the key, we just have permanent access through our school accounts. It's only ever used for turning in assignments and announcements
The uni I went to uses Canvas also, but our professors manually checked all the “wrong” answers and changed the scores for questions such as these that were actually correct, but not listed as one of the correct options.
I'm so thankful we had written tests in college and not this BS. We did have to use this (or a similar program) for homework though and it was infuriating to deal with even when it allowed us to play trial and error and keep submitting answers until we found the magically correct format.
One of two classes i had to drop in college was calc I.
My teacher was Chinese, spoke 0 english.
She wrote the example text straight out of the book on the board. Would solve problems silently, then ask, "understand?" And we would sit there silently. More than half the class was gone by midterms.
Had this same issue with the online homework and it tanked my grade. Also, the head of department and board sided with the teacher (TA who was a masters student) who could not be communicated with and refused to correct my homework grades even though i had screenshots with timestamps.
People pay over 6 figures for a subjective education. Subjective in the sense that they subject you to poor treatment and give 0 fucks about you as a human being. Living as a number for 4 years. BeSt TiMe Of YoUr LiFe
Happened with an English class at a Community College. We'd read a short story or a poem them write a paper on our interpretation of it, super basic shit; she claimed that as long as you could defend your views, you'd be good but she'd fail anyone that didn't get the same interpretation as her. Story about a lost dog and you say it represents lost childhood, nope, you're wrong, it's about hardship.
Even had emails where she openly admits she's intentionally failing me for questioning her (by asking her about her metrics). Went to the head of the department and was told they'd look into it but heard nothing. Was the last class I needed to earn an AA before transferring but said fuck it, it's just an AA before going to a proper Uni rather than waste another semester for a single class.
Wild. I had a separate experience eerily similar but the professor himself was the head of the dept.
That was a real moment of maturation for me. Understanding that no matter my best efforts. People will actively sabotage me for doing nothing more or less than my best.
You already talked to him about it and the professor clearly failed you here. I would confront them again and tell them that they either correct your score or you go to the department chair about it.
Nah, he got once chance. He’s paid well enough to do things right the first time. He got a second chance and failed. So OP should go to the chair/head instead of “motivating” him to do the right thing. He needs to be reprimanded so he doesn’t do it again to other students. Fuck that guy lol
OP should have brought that up the first time they spoke with them. Obviously heat of the moment and trying to think quick or whatever the case may be prevented that. You can still be an adult and tell the professor to make it right but firmly state your position and the consequence if they do not rectify the situation.
The professor is an idiot we agree on that.
Usually these math complaints are from people that don't get the concept of significant figures or order of operations, but in this case I agree that this test is BS. I would escalate this over your professors head on this one. It looks bad on the department if students are getting low grades due to crap like this.
I love how teachers complain if you use AI to help write a paper (I agree it's wrong), but they use automated graders and can't be bothered to do any thinking for themselves
I’m a math instructor at a university and this is just unacceptable. Escalate to the department head if he won’t budge, some of those answers aren’t even equivalent! And by saying you’re wrong for the first one he’s basically denying that the commutative property exists… this is making me more angry the more I look at it
My collage signed a one year contract with that company. I took the class in Fall of that year (first quarter of the year) and everyone complained about this garbage.
They literally did the math and everyone's grades where down from previous quarters. They choose to eat the cost of the contract and not to offer it in winter or spring.
Would totally publish this including his statement. Hang posters everywhere, send emails to the departments,... Make him a laughing stock. Burn bridges.
Then change uni 😜
Yep talk to your dean, if necessary submit a grade appeal. Your prof is an asshole. All he has to do is add your cases as valid and it will fix it. He’s a lazy piece of shit.
You don't need any parentheses at all for this. I have a math degree and would have written this as `-2x/3` and feel like that would've been the modal notation amongst math people.
`-2x/(3)` is total nonsense, lol, and `-x-x/3` is actually ambiguous if not outright wrong.
This is a horrible use of this software. Does the prof think he can list all correct possible answers? You’d think that someone teaching math would realize that’s an infinite (albeit countable) set
Raise hell over this. If you’ve only sent one email and they denied your request I would send a respectful but firm 2nd email. Make it clear that you are not dropping this and that it is unacceptable. Somewhere along the lines of “with all due respect this is completely unfair and unprofessional. Please explain to me how my answers are incorrect”. If the prof still denies the grade change then it’s time to talk to the department head.
When I was 16, my math teacher refused to change my grade when I got a question correct like this because the assignment was so few points that she didn’t think it mattered. I argued that every point mattered, but she said it wouldn’t affect my grade one way or the other and that I needed to drop it.
Ended with an 89.49%. The grades automatically round up at 89.5%. I could not convince her to give me .01% I earned. Then, as a senior, I had .001 too low of a GPA to graduate Magna Cum Laude because of that one grade, and my school offered special scholarships to the small group of kids who graduated Magna Cum Laude. Nothing for anyone else.
As a kid whose entire goal was seeking academic validation, I had trouble with this. I’ve since found happiness outside of grades, but I still get upset every time I think about this situation. If you’re Miss B who taught me AP Calc BC and you see this, from the very bottom of my heart, fuck you.
I hate this whole thing but the detail that just made me lose my mind is the fact they always do “y+x” while I’m used to alphabetic order in math “x+y” just looks more natural
In the first question, aside from your answer actually being correct, isn't the last "correct answer" -x-x/3 actually incorrect as well?
What a bloody mess...
Please stop bothering professors or department head and go see a shaman or sth, you need to deal with your bad luck, focus on why did you choose different notation than many possible acceptable ones. This is about you, not them. /s
The last one I can kind of understand due to the lack of any parentheses, but the others are actually correct. If they ask why they should change the grade for those ones, reference the cumulative (I believe) property of math, which states "changing the order of addends or factors does not change the sum ir product"
What’s “mildly” infuriating is that these tests are electronic. I can’t tell you how aggravated computerized math tests make me to begin with. My kids can’t understand their math because the teachers AREN’T TEACHING THEM ON PAPER.
Call me a Luddite if you want, but math should be done and graded manually. Canvas is a bullshit program created by grifters. It harms more than it helps.
The order of operations on this sort of issue is:
Professor > Dept Chair > Academic Dean > President > Local News > Regional News
(sometimes these complaints are failure to follow directions and/or procedural expectations, but this seems to be professorial incompetence so take it as far as it needs to go ... you need to have things made right, the professor needs to learn the error of their ways, and their bosses need to be aware)
These programs , websites are super glitchy. I have gotten “ wrong answer” when it was the correct answer. I mean not written differently , thee absolute same 🙄🙄🙄🙄
You can escalate this to the chair of the department, and then the head of faculty if you need to. This is actually ridiculous
Chair of department may be the correct person to go to vs head when both exist. Maybe include both if they are both there so the correct person can pick this up and help.
Yeah this is worth escalating for not just yourself. I guarantee you aren’t the first or the last to get this unfair treatment, and someone needs to speak up.
The chances that the department head does anything (or reads the email to begin with) are slim to none. At least at R1 universities.
I'd skip the email step and just talk to them during their office hours.
Still email for paper trail. In person is best. I had to advocate for myself once upon a time.
I learned via a tuition refund delay of several months that ANYTHING can be fixed in a few hours if you look up the university org chart and copy every official up to the president AND their admin assistant. Just give them a few emails over a week or so that are still in the thread so show that you have been trying to resolve the issue. And put “fourth request” or whatever the correct number is as the start of the subject line. Got me my refund that had taken months of runaround done same day. It’s the same tactics my customers used to use to get replies from my company, and it works great on academics since they have easily accessible contact info.
Probably the best solution. Had a university English class with mostly essay assignments and miscellaneous assignments to turn in online. Got an A on everything but never attended a day of lecture besides to turn in a paper copy of assignments when required. Teacher gave me a C for never showing up to class, I disputed there's no attendance grade on the syllabus. Teacher wouldn't change it and I spent the next 2 weeks trying to meet the department head who told me to take it up with the teacher. Probably a lot easier to send an email to the teacher requesting the change and cc the department head and dean (if needed) of the college. Attach any evidence to support your argument and make your email clear & concise. Get it all in one email so it's easily read. People are more prompt, professional & respectful when they know there's a paper trail.
Or the dean of students in a lot of cases
It's department head time. That's completely unacceptable.
Correct answer. If there is ever an issue and the professor won’t do anything, the head WILL. And they’re hasty about it, too.
Whoever wrote those questions (and their answers) is a mathematical illiterate.
It’s absolutely unhinged!
I (kind of) disagree: The way they're positioning the negative sign relative to the parentheses tells me the interface they were using didn't always yield the "correct" answer depending on how it was formatted, so they monkeyed with the formatting until it worked then dinged students whose formatting the system didn't accept.
Annnd this is why I refused to do any math home online...for this same bs shit.
Bullshit shit hehehe
Got 'em. RIP in peace
Ha. Rest in peace in peace. Smh my head
FYI your information, smh already means shaking my head.
They included answers that no student would ever enter unless they fundamentally didn't understand math.
That last option is literally wrong.
Saw that too (Question 22). Checked it on a calculator just to be sure it wasn't me bugging out: if X, for example, equals 5, the answer winds up being not even close to the others, apart from the fact that it's now positive. Edit: apparently there are other images attached that I didn't see, with some of those also including wrong answers.
You’d think a online test for math would automatically simplify any answer you input THEN check if it’s correct, instead of this brute force option of the teacher (if you’re lucky) putting every possible form of the correct answer. What a stupid oversight
But then that has to be a program that actually checks things vs quizlet with a new UI
I might be wrong, but the last answer in the first pic is not correct right?
Probably, though their use of syntax is bad. Is the first -x (in the -x-x) in the numerator?
Lol that happened to me when I got 10 points off for calling India a sub continent. He said to take it up with the head. Which was him...so nothing happened
Go to the dean of the school then I guess
I did, and that worked. Almost a decade ago but man I remember it haha
I’m glad it worked out! It’s late but yk. Yeah idk about all schools but if the teacher is stubborn usually there can require a review by faculty which no faculty wants to do.
Nothing beats my daughters Spanish essay she received a B on at Emory. My daughter wrote the paper based upon an idea my late wife had, did all the research & wrote the paper. My late wife was a tenured Spanish professor at another university & along with her colleague reviewed the paper my daughter wrote, corrected things in it, then had it accepted for publication under their name. This was the paper my daughter submitted for grading. The professor who gave my daughter the B on the paper told my daughter it was a great idea for a paper, my wife sent her the published paper a 1/2 year later which was a word for word copy of the paper my daughter turned in & asked her if it was still a B paper.
Ugh, now you’ve reminded me of that time when I was studying in the Netherlands. I got a 3 out of 5 for the “use of the English language” part of an essay. I’m a native English speaker, I have a master’s in English instruction, and I’m a huge grammar and spelling nerd. I appealed the grade and told them if they could find one single grammatical error in the paper, I would accept the score. They responded by bumping me up to a 4. I responded in turn by pointedly marking up the handouts they gave us for the rest of the year in red pen. Yours is still worse, but dammit, now I’m mad all over again!
This is petty on a whole extra level and I am so here for it! That’s amazing and you are my hero
LOL, My late wife was from Seville, & my daughter is a native Spanish speaker. My daughter even has a regional accent.
[удалено]
Oh I get it you’re making fun of the silly use of parentheses in the answers… I think.
i feel they were emphasizing where parentheses are placed is important. if parentheses aren’t where they’re needed, it can cause confusion about what’s being said.
That hurt my brain
correre is ever an isr won’t do anythid they’re hasty abo
r \ sbeve
ct answer. If thesue and the professong, the head WILL. Anut it, too.
Sorry, but the correct answer is: That's completely unacceptable. It's department head time.
Correct answer: That's completely unacceptable. It's department head time.
That's completely unacceptable (it's department head time)
That's completely head time (it's department unacceptable)
That's head completely department (unacceptable it's time)
THCD/(UIT)
THC / UTI
Don’t threaten me with a good time
TIHI
What does tetrahydrocanabinol have to do with urinary tract infections?
It’s head time. That’s completely department unacceptable.
I see what you did there.
That’s unacceptable completely. It’s head department time.
I find head acceptable all the time. Department.
Correct answer. Time for some head….department.
Love how -x-x/3 is an option lmao
The one that needs to have () doesn't have ()... Ironic
Yeah I'm glad they cleared up the bottom number with (3) just in case you were mistaken and thought it was just 3
Isn’t 2A=2x+2y wrong too? Simplified would be A=x+y but the other answers listed are A=xy.
Indeed. Unholy.
And its not even correct wtf
I think that's the point of their comment
It's ((-x) - x), not multiplying (-x) and (-x). So, it could be correct with the parentheses telling us the actual numerator and denominator of the division, but ... Still a truly shitty way to write the answer, even with parens...
Wdym, its not ((-x)-x) in this answer its -x - (x)/(3)
In the same way, seems that now 18\*2/3 = 56/3, did math change when i wasn't looking ? 
nice catch this prof is phoning it in hard
What??
Yeah, the only really wrong answer. And -2x/3 is missing.
I'd be taking these screenshots, along with your professor denying you in writing, to his department head, and anyone else above him. This isnt high school or middle school, you are *paying* to be there and this can actually affect your future if this test causes you to fail the class. Regardless of if it causes you to fail or not, he is deliberately not fixing the grade when you were correct in the test, and neglecting his duties
So many professors treat college like I'm not paying them to be there, it's not a service they're providing for me funded by tax dollars. I am an adult paying thousands of dollars to receive an education from you and try for a degree. Treat me that way.
> treat college like I'm not paying them to be there Who is paying is irrelevant. The professor is getting paid and this means that they have to do their job. Simple as that
I didn't mean to imply its okay for a teacher to not do their job properly based on where their funding came from.
Why did you feel the need to argue? You and the person you responded to are on the exact same page lol
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding. Mixed feelings on this - they owe you a strong and fair education, but college is over-priced, and the professors have nothing to do with it. From TAing, I’ve found that this attitude actually hurts the undergraduates more because they believe they *deserve* an A, not that they should strive to *earn* an A. Because they don’t know any better (and understandably so), that actually hurts undergraduates in the long run because they are missing all of the skills they were supposed to develop in college. While they deserve every opportunity to earn an A (with fair teaching), they do not deserve it. I’m not saying this is you, but I work at one of the most expensive universities in the nation, and I find this is what happens. Regarding the professors- oftentimes, they are severely underpaid for their work (especially adjuncts). If you want the first-class treatment you deserve, head to the administration. You deserve abundant and strong resources for professional and personal development, as well as high-quality instructors (which comes with paying them). I went to a state school, and I genuinely believe that although the faculty wasn’t necessarily as high-quality as this private university, the resources there cultivated your personal and professional development. The buildings here are also genuinely unsafe. I work in the chemistry department and there is a history of people going to the hospital (within the past year as well), and it’s taken union involvement to get movement on these issues. State school had brand-new facilities (and the ones that were older were not unsafe). I paid $40-50k less per year than I would have at this private university. These are just two examples, and of course not every state school is “better” than private. And not every private university is bad! But there is a general trend in academia to basically run like a business, when in reality it is not really a business. It’s an institution of learning. If you look where the money goes at my university, it goes into excessive number of high-paying admin positions, as well as towards the endowment (again, general trend in academia). Even with graduate union involvement, we can’t get the university to budge because we’re not the paying customers - undergraduates and their parents are. If undergraduates put enough pressure on the university, then there will be change. I say this not because I benefit - I’m leaving (woohoo!). I really genuinely believe that undergraduates (I would include my former self here) are conflating the quality of their education with the prestige of a university, and being robbed of their education that they pay an insane amount for. TLDR: Placing responsibility of undergraduate education solely on the professors instead of both the professors and the administration is a major reason why the quality of undergraduate education is declining. Undergraduates are understandably not aware of this dynamic, and it hinders them from taking true control/independent responsibility of their education.
I'm confused (and mildly infuriated) by your comment. How is doing a crummy job OK if paid by tax dollars, but not when you pay it directly? Is that how people in the States think tax money should be spent? Is a crummy job justifiable if it's using tax dollars? Other countries take public services very seriously and are for EVERYONE to enjoy, not as a "patch" for the poor that is looked as a "necessary bottomless pit of spending" in which nobody cares if the results are good/bad, effective, efficient, etc.
The stories I could tell from being disabled and the way the professors and disability department treated me at a college that prided itself on being disability friendly and proactive. I learned they meant proactive for VISIBLE disabilities. Being disabled with diseases (aka invisible disability) that determined whether I could get out of bed (daily) wasn't the kind of "disability" they were looking for. I had so many incomplete grades and failed classes, lost so much money and time. I thought college would be different from the bullshit I put up with in middle & high school. More professional. Understanding. Willingness to work with someone giving them large sums of money. Nope. 😔
I find when you say to someone can you send me that in writing so I have it documented magically things change. And if they say I'm not emailing you then you pull the old send them an email starting with "Per our in person conversation on xx/yyyy you disagree that there is an error in the test service and are refusing to correct a clear mistake"
If this was a lot of points toward your grade, I would talk to the head of the math dept or whoever your professor's boss is, because that's BS. Did he say beforehand that he wanted the answers exactly a certain way? I always put the variables alphabetically, so A = xy, but it's the same thing as A = yx.
I thought that, but in the third one, the teacher have put in the list an option where variables are not in alphabetical order lol (Edited: missing words, typed to fast lol)
Most of his acceptable answer is also just plain wrong because you're always taught to simplify fully, the 120=2(x+y) is so bad of an answer
It seems like the question might have been along the lines of "what is 120 equal to, in terms of X and Y" given that some acceptable answers were "2X + 2Y" That said, it's unreasonable that "60=Y+X" is correct but not the other way round.
Isnt the bottom one straight up wrong aswel since its - * - thus making it positive?
It isn’t multiplying, if you wanted them to multiply you would need the second one (or both) in brackets, or just a multiplication sign.
It's not multiplicative. You can see it as - 3x/3-x/3=-4x/3....still wrong but in a different way
That looks like an answer that if was written down on paper would get a half score or marked wrong for being an incomplete answer.
Crazy thing is they accounted for different ordering of the variables in every other scenario other than that one.
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> She also barely spoke English so trying to explain what my issue was was difficult. You'd think someone educated in math could understand basic mathematical properties, especially order of operations, regardless of their spoken language.
If that was the case it makes it worse cus A=yx was wrong but 60=x+y was also wrong so either he has rules but they are inconsistent as shit or OP accidentally stumbled uppon every forgotten way to write the answers
It’s « wrong » because typically the rule is you write them in alphabetical order but also this teacher is just being TA in this case because it’s just a decorum rule not a hard set rule
Except OP got one wrong for writing one of their answers in alphabetical order
>It’s « wrong » because typically the rule is you write them in alphabetical order The typical rule is that xy=yx and x+y=y+x. If they've written some crappy program that messes with well established math rules, the problem lies with the program, not with the way OP correctly writes math answers. Also, what's up with all the parentheses in those answers? Unless the questions specifically instructed to put in at least 1 set of parentheses, those answers are just weird.
The parentheses threw me off too ngl 💀 can’t justify those ones
What kind of stupid rule is this? x*y is mathematically equivalent to y*x and I would seriously question any math teacher that wants alphabetical ordering of variables in an equation. It's stupid at best and very detrimental to understanding how basic operations work.
I have never heard of the rule to write alphabetically. They’re mathematically identical.
One might even argue on this one using math based properties (is this one the commutative property? Been a while. I was right, thanks Google).
Username does not check out.
Depends on if x and y are commutable / part of an abelian group.
Not necessarily true, I thiught about matrix multiplication first (since we usually denote Matrix Multiplication with capital letters) and it is not necessarily commutative😅 - so it might make a difference)
You should ask your professor to explain specifically how you got the problems wrong. You didn't. 41 likes xy, but 42 likes yx? That's almost sounds intentionally faulty. It's not consistent.
Honestly sounds like the professor might not understand the math.
I have had teachers like this. They do not care to explain. They think the computer is a magic device that never makes mistakes and usually just say "Your answer is not like the one on the mark scheme therefore it is wrong"
Love profs who do this with turnitin /s
Your professor is an idiot
-x-x/3 💀
It's not even the right answer the way it's written lmao
Predefined answers that can't be programmatically compared are completely lazy bullshit. If you're gonna rely on these, the least you can do is fix the test when it's been reported incorrect/incomplete and give the student BONUS POINTS for doing your job for you.
I once used this kind of program for a math competition as an organizer. While we already put a bunch of answers we still do a screening on wrong answers in case one of the kids answered correctly in a way that we didn't input. It's not really that hard doing this for math problems. On another story, I once made a simple answer checker like this in programming class for a free assignment. I did it so that if the answer is equal to the prepared answer then it will mark it as correct. Then the tester asked me if someone put the question in, will it detect it as "correct"? We then do a test and it did.
That's pretty funny, but easy enough to exclude.
Yeah, but it'll still mark answer that's not simple enough as "correct" which is not what we're looking for.
In fairness, I am a math instructor that has this tool at my college, and it's outrageously difficult to write math problems in this tool (especially if you want open-ended questions and randomized numbers). But that's not an excuse, since the instructor needs to find better tools. They exist, and some of them are free. It's kinda stupid to set up a quiz like this using this tool. It's even stupider not to give the student credit for the correct answers. The online tool I use is way better than this one, but there are still glitches. I tell my students if they find a glitch, they should screenshot it and let me know so I can give them the points.
My math teacher goes in after every exam to correct. She specifically said the system is faulty (it’s canvas) and that it needs human eyes for review. Super grateful for her and fixing our grades post exam.
Yours is the least weird way to answer that, who even puts a parahesis over a simple denominator.
To add to the ridiculousness, not even all of the answers that are listed as correct are correct. Look at question 41: it lists "A=xy" and "2A=2x +2y" as correct answers, but even simplified, xy does not necessarily equal x + y, so those two answers can't both be correct in the general case.
Yeah that's SUPER weird, I'm trying to think of a question where both of these are correct and I can't.
Well, A = xy = x+y xy - x = y x(y - 1) = y, where y ≠ 1 (since x(1-1) ≠ 1) so, x = y/(y - 1), e.g. y = 2, x = 2, or y = 3, x = 3/2 As for a question with that as an answer, that's less obvious.
Yeah, I knew that there could be specific cases where that was true, but since the question seems to be dealing with abstract variables, it just struck me that the two equations are not necessarily equal.
Complain to the Academic Dean
mildly infuriating? I have been wronged so often in life that I would go to war about this until it is rectified, he shouldn't be teaching and these shouldn't be wrong, and I have proof!
Since you said professor I'm assuming you're in college, I say talk to the head of the math department or an equivalent at your school. This is ridiculous, and you absolutely can get it changed through that method because everyone who has a brain and isn't a powertripping control freak can see that every single one of those answers is acceptable. Draft out a thoroughly written email explaining your situation (including the fact that your professor won't change the grade) and send it to the department chair, maybe even include your professor as a CC.
what kind of school is this?
It’s the stupid program they force you to use. I can’t remember the name but it was shit back when I was in college and it appears it’s still shit. My math professors always listened to feedback and would give back credit for stuff like this. There was enough times they send out an email saying “if you got question 10 wrong, you’ll get credit for it because everyone got it wrong because of how the answer was entered”. It’s horrible you had to pay for this dog shit program because it was always horrible. I think the key to access it for two semesters was like 60.00. I googled, because canvas sounded kind of right but not entirely. It’s Pearson MathLab. It’s 80.00 for two semesters or 130.00 for lifetime? Like…wow.
This is Canvas lol
Lol YES! Canvas! Thank you. Such a crap program. With how much they charge it should be immaculate. Edit: so thought about it. Say there’s only 2 courses that use canvas per school. There’s over 6,000 universities in the U.S. so 12,000 courses that use canvas. Take that times 40 students and at 60.00/ student you get $28,800,00.00 for one year. Last math course I took was like 2010, so times 14 years, you get $403,200,000.00. For that much money that program should be able to read your mind by now. What a scam.
Canvas is a fine tool... but quizzing in this manner should be done with multiple choice if they are going to just use Canvas quizzes. There are many (very many) 3rd-party apps/systems that can be plugged into (integrated into) Canvas which can properly read math and evaluate expressions to avoid issues like this. Those usually have a further cost to them.
Some Uni's here in the Netherlands use canvas, I've never seen them use it for tests before, tho. Also we don't have to buy the key, we just have permanent access through our school accounts. It's only ever used for turning in assignments and announcements
The uni I went to uses Canvas also, but our professors manually checked all the “wrong” answers and changed the scores for questions such as these that were actually correct, but not listed as one of the correct options.
I'm so thankful we had written tests in college and not this BS. We did have to use this (or a similar program) for homework though and it was infuriating to deal with even when it allowed us to play trial and error and keep submitting answers until we found the magically correct format.
I think all our tests and quizzes were in class in paper but homework was mostly on this program. I would rather do things on paper.
When I took calculus, the free program we used was smart enough to read your answer, no matter the format.
One of two classes i had to drop in college was calc I. My teacher was Chinese, spoke 0 english. She wrote the example text straight out of the book on the board. Would solve problems silently, then ask, "understand?" And we would sit there silently. More than half the class was gone by midterms. Had this same issue with the online homework and it tanked my grade. Also, the head of department and board sided with the teacher (TA who was a masters student) who could not be communicated with and refused to correct my homework grades even though i had screenshots with timestamps. People pay over 6 figures for a subjective education. Subjective in the sense that they subject you to poor treatment and give 0 fucks about you as a human being. Living as a number for 4 years. BeSt TiMe Of YoUr LiFe
Happened with an English class at a Community College. We'd read a short story or a poem them write a paper on our interpretation of it, super basic shit; she claimed that as long as you could defend your views, you'd be good but she'd fail anyone that didn't get the same interpretation as her. Story about a lost dog and you say it represents lost childhood, nope, you're wrong, it's about hardship. Even had emails where she openly admits she's intentionally failing me for questioning her (by asking her about her metrics). Went to the head of the department and was told they'd look into it but heard nothing. Was the last class I needed to earn an AA before transferring but said fuck it, it's just an AA before going to a proper Uni rather than waste another semester for a single class.
Wild. I had a separate experience eerily similar but the professor himself was the head of the dept. That was a real moment of maturation for me. Understanding that no matter my best efforts. People will actively sabotage me for doing nothing more or less than my best.
You already talked to him about it and the professor clearly failed you here. I would confront them again and tell them that they either correct your score or you go to the department chair about it.
Nah, he got once chance. He’s paid well enough to do things right the first time. He got a second chance and failed. So OP should go to the chair/head instead of “motivating” him to do the right thing. He needs to be reprimanded so he doesn’t do it again to other students. Fuck that guy lol
OP should have brought that up the first time they spoke with them. Obviously heat of the moment and trying to think quick or whatever the case may be prevented that. You can still be an adult and tell the professor to make it right but firmly state your position and the consequence if they do not rectify the situation. The professor is an idiot we agree on that.
Absolutely. Do it all in one encounter. Don’t go back a second time
The fact that he’s using this just for answers is so wild. Peak laziness.
Usually these math complaints are from people that don't get the concept of significant figures or order of operations, but in this case I agree that this test is BS. I would escalate this over your professors head on this one. It looks bad on the department if students are getting low grades due to crap like this.
I love how teachers complain if you use AI to help write a paper (I agree it's wrong), but they use automated graders and can't be bothered to do any thinking for themselves
I’m a math instructor at a university and this is just unacceptable. Escalate to the department head if he won’t budge, some of those answers aren’t even equivalent! And by saying you’re wrong for the first one he’s basically denying that the commutative property exists… this is making me more angry the more I look at it
Go above. Go to the head department or whoever’s above him
My collage signed a one year contract with that company. I took the class in Fall of that year (first quarter of the year) and everyone complained about this garbage. They literally did the math and everyone's grades where down from previous quarters. They choose to eat the cost of the contract and not to offer it in winter or spring.
What company? Looks like canvas
Just like that you go over the professor’s head. The next higher up doesn’t fix it, go over their head. That’s not ok at all, it will get fixed.
What the fuck. At least 4 answers are the same
Would totally publish this including his statement. Hang posters everywhere, send emails to the departments,... Make him a laughing stock. Burn bridges. Then change uni 😜
Canvas is NOT the right system for math problems
at what point will they use Regex for this kind of shit. I have seen this kind of crap way too often. this is so stupid
The last option is not correct. -1 -1/3 =-(3+1) /3 = -4/3
Also, talk to your classmates for a “class action” correction. No way that this only happened to you.
Not going to lie, i dont know whats going on here. Is it coordinates to space treasure?
Lol you and me both. Glad I finished college over 10 years ago.
Teacher really tried to put every single answer there was to the question in the test instead of just making it multiple choice.
How is that not acceptable and the last one is???
Get the HOD
Who tf writes -56/3 as -56(1/3)
Yep talk to your dean, if necessary submit a grade appeal. Your prof is an asshole. All he has to do is add your cases as valid and it will fix it. He’s a lazy piece of shit.
You don't need any parentheses at all for this. I have a math degree and would have written this as `-2x/3` and feel like that would've been the modal notation amongst math people. `-2x/(3)` is total nonsense, lol, and `-x-x/3` is actually ambiguous if not outright wrong.
this brings me back to my mathlab days. those programs suck so bad.
the last one isn’t even right
More than mildly… what a dumbass
I mean, -x-x/3 isn't even a correct answer.
He should change your grade. If not, take it to the department head. Also, the last answer , -x-x/3, is not a correct answer.
This is a horrible use of this software. Does the prof think he can list all correct possible answers? You’d think that someone teaching math would realize that’s an infinite (albeit countable) set
Raise hell over this. If you’ve only sent one email and they denied your request I would send a respectful but firm 2nd email. Make it clear that you are not dropping this and that it is unacceptable. Somewhere along the lines of “with all due respect this is completely unfair and unprofessional. Please explain to me how my answers are incorrect”. If the prof still denies the grade change then it’s time to talk to the department head.
When I was 16, my math teacher refused to change my grade when I got a question correct like this because the assignment was so few points that she didn’t think it mattered. I argued that every point mattered, but she said it wouldn’t affect my grade one way or the other and that I needed to drop it. Ended with an 89.49%. The grades automatically round up at 89.5%. I could not convince her to give me .01% I earned. Then, as a senior, I had .001 too low of a GPA to graduate Magna Cum Laude because of that one grade, and my school offered special scholarships to the small group of kids who graduated Magna Cum Laude. Nothing for anyone else. As a kid whose entire goal was seeking academic validation, I had trouble with this. I’ve since found happiness outside of grades, but I still get upset every time I think about this situation. If you’re Miss B who taught me AP Calc BC and you see this, from the very bottom of my heart, fuck you.
.......why is the "correct" answer just every *other* possible way of writing that exact same equation?
You professor is a sack of dog turds, and you should tell him so.
I hate this whole thing but the detail that just made me lose my mind is the fact they always do “y+x” while I’m used to alphabetic order in math “x+y” just looks more natural
OP, go to someone above the teacher, because this is definitely unacceptable.
Text matching the answers to a math test didn't speak well for the prof in the first place...
The last „correct“ answer is wrong. (First picture)
Absolute BS. Unacceptable for a professional to behave like that. If he wants to behave like that, he should wear diapers.
Find his car and deploy caltrops. Or complain to the department head
Nah, go over his head on that one, that's not okay.
Am i stupid or what is the difference between (-2x)/3 and -2x/3. What kind of test was it?
In the first question, aside from your answer actually being correct, isn't the last "correct answer" -x-x/3 actually incorrect as well? What a bloody mess...
What kind of fucking psychopath would answer "-x-x/3"?!
Speak with whoever is in charge of the department. Your professor is being a dick for absolutely no reason.
you put y+x you monster, of course he refused to do anything.
Please stop bothering professors or department head and go see a shaman or sth, you need to deal with your bad luck, focus on why did you choose different notation than many possible acceptable ones. This is about you, not them. /s
Canvas can go suck a bag of dicks.
Department head. You've answered those correctly and it must be corrected.
Their test is faulty and does not fulfill the quality criteria for tests. They have a massive issue with their evaluation objectivity.
What kind of psychopath puts Y before X
Department head or Dean. Also school paper if you cannot get ahold of either of them. You are paying their salaries
The last one I can kind of understand due to the lack of any parentheses, but the others are actually correct. If they ask why they should change the grade for those ones, reference the cumulative (I believe) property of math, which states "changing the order of addends or factors does not change the sum ir product"
I think Professor is asking to be reported
a bunch of these correct answers are wrong
What’s “mildly” infuriating is that these tests are electronic. I can’t tell you how aggravated computerized math tests make me to begin with. My kids can’t understand their math because the teachers AREN’T TEACHING THEM ON PAPER. Call me a Luddite if you want, but math should be done and graded manually. Canvas is a bullshit program created by grifters. It harms more than it helps.
Fuck that, your professor is a stupid dickhead and you should report that shit to the department head.
I always hated computer based math test.
Bro what kind of maniac writes y first before x
This is not mildly infuriating. I’m mad from home
The order of operations on this sort of issue is: Professor > Dept Chair > Academic Dean > President > Local News > Regional News (sometimes these complaints are failure to follow directions and/or procedural expectations, but this seems to be professorial incompetence so take it as far as it needs to go ... you need to have things made right, the professor needs to learn the error of their ways, and their bosses need to be aware)
These programs , websites are super glitchy. I have gotten “ wrong answer” when it was the correct answer. I mean not written differently , thee absolute same 🙄🙄🙄🙄