Our scores from the trigonometry test were finally given to us today. I very unexpectedly got a 110. How in the world did that happen when I didn't even finish the test?
It turns out that the teacher made all the graphing questions into bonus questions. I had finished everything except one of the graphing problems. All the other graphs were correct so that gave me a nice bonus.
The classes this semester are so different from those I've taken over the past five years. It's as if the teachers don't expect much from us because of our situation and continually lower their standards to make them fit us. How does that prepare us for a life outside? Many of the guys are here because they lowered their standards. It seems to me that, by lowering the educational standards to their (the inmates') level, the educators are merely encouraging the guys to stay the same. I know it's not true, but wouldn't it help more to maintain their (the teachers') original standards and require us to reach them?
Today was the first Trig class since our test. Our Tuesday class was canceled because the teacher was sick. I've been wondering how I did on the test since I didn't actually finish. I thought today would be the day to find out. I was wrong.
The teacher did not grade the tests at all. Over the weekend she heard that a guard found a cheat sheet in one of the desks in her classroom. She doesn't know who cheated and she was too angry to grade fairly, so she just let it be.
She was in a much better mood today. We barely got asked about the cheating because she said she was already pretty sure who had cheated and the suspect is not in our class. Instead we moved on to our new material. I'm still wondering how those tests turned out.
This is it -judgment day. Time to see if being in class actually helps when taking a test. I did get a practice test from a classmate yesterday, and spent two and a half hours going over it and referring to the book. Going into this morning's class I felt like I would do well, though I had to run back to the dorm to pick up my calculator. Oops.
I sat down, looked at the test in front of me, and saw that the problems before me were far more complex that what I had done last night. Most of the test was drawing translated sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant and cosecant graphs. The problems last night had two digit changes to the equation, while today's had four and five.
I slowly - very slowly - worked through the graphs until the teacher said we should be halfway finished. I had barely worked the first page, so I skipped the rest of the graphs and tore through the quicker stuff. I came back to the graphs with about twenty minutes left. I had the last problem mostly complete when we were told to stop.
I did take everything slowly and checked my work, so except for that last graph, I think I did well. I'm just going to have to wait till Thursday to see what the actual judgment is. As the saying goes: the writing is the hardest part.
Yesterday the grades from our philosophy test came back. I got an 86, not bad but also not what I wanted. There were not any comments on any of the papers except on the front where "chart" was written.
A week before the test, the instructor told us what we needed to know for the test. He included the fact that we need to know and be able to reproduce one of the charts in the book. The day of the test, he put the essay questions on the board without anything about the chart; nearly everyone wrote out their essay. Only two people drew the chart out on the paper.
I assumed that, since it was an essay, I would write out the information on the chart to explain it. Apparently, the instructor wanted a drawing of the actual chart; he took away 7 points, which would have given me a comfortable "A".
It amazed me and several other classmates that we had our A's taken away from us because we didn't have clear instructions to draw the chart.
And I still don't know where the other 7 points went.
Last week we took our first test in Sociology without actually covering all the material. Today we finished up those chapters even though we had already been tested over them. Doesn't make much sense to me, but, oh well.
I was really hurting just walking around today. My knees are aching terribly after yesterday's run. I need to strengthen my knees again after being absent from the field for so long. I could barely bend to clean the showers last night and I'm not looking forward to tonight's work, either.
