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Re: Use of exams.



Even though this thread has pretty much played out, I wanted to add
one thing about how I deal with "special" treatment of people on exams.
Many years ago I found myself giving virtually every exam twice because
at least one person had some acceptable reason for missing the regularly
scheduled one. This was consuming huge amounts of my time, since the
work involved in preparing an exam is basically independent of the
number of people taking the exam. I also felt that it was unfair, since
the original exam was my best effort, and the makeup would either be
easier than the first one or more difficult.
I have long had a policy of dropping the lowest exam grade (heaven
forbid that students should accept all the consequences of their
actions!), so I eventually added a statement to my syllabi to the effect
that absolutely NO makeup exams will be given for any reason whatever--
a missed exam will simply be dropped. (You may object that a student
might miss more than one exam. In more than 10 years this has only
happened a couple of times, and I gave those students Incompletes and
they successfully finished the course the next semester.)
Since we are now expected to make special arrangements for people
with 'learning disabilities' (and I'm still a little suspicious of many
of these 'disabilities'), I have added another stipulation to the
syllabus that except for VERY special circumstances, exams will not be
given at times other than the regular class meeting time nor will exams
be given in locations other than the regular classroom. (The NO MAKEUP
rule with the lowest exam score being dropped still applies.) I have
generally had very little trouble since I adopted these policies,
although I'll still have perhaps one student per year (almost always in
a general education physical science class) who has either ignored the
syllabus or who doesn't believe that I'll risk student displeasure by
actually following the policy. But I always hold my ground and I've
never been made to change the rules.


Steve Luzader
Frostburg State University