funny incident in class today

...hahaha i was about to buss out laughing in class today. so we get our papers back form our professor and for the most part, i think that the class did average. however this is the part that really gets me. she tells us that we have a chance to redo our papers if we wanted to. then we start to go over the outline that she gave us to follow. in the outline, it said that a few things were optional..so we are thinking that we didn't have to do these parts for the paper. however everyone is missing points for this "optional" parts of the paper. one student inquires about this, and the prof said that it was mandatory if you wanted to get the full points. you shouldn't do this jsut to get by, but you should strive yourself to do excellent work. also there is another part where the prof had told us to use 3 different book. she gave us examples like book 1, book 2, and/or book 3. so the class is guessing that we can choose the books that we wanted to. again the prof turns around and tells us that we must use the three books from class.

this is the part that got me. the after this ordeal was over, one student got very upset with the teacher. she outright was arguing with her. and the prof tried to calm her down, but she couldn't. they continued to bump heads, and it was so ****ing funny. later the prof asked if the student could come back after class because she did not like the tone of her voice. then the student packed her bags and stormed out. by now the class was about to roll off of their seats and there was nothing that anyone could really do about it,...but laugh.

raverboy

Well I can understand it. The prof is trying to instill that you should always try for the best marks possible instead of just using short cuts to get things done quick.

Although the student was kinda crazy. I mean if the student was that upset over it, just remember that this teacher chooses to do this type of lesson and do all the work anyways. Plus, the prof said you could redo the paper, so there is no point in arguing anyways. You just have to learn these things.

What an ass of a professor. As the popular phrase goes,

"If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum."

If she's gonna take points off of it, don't label it as OPTIONAL. That's just retarded.

Rod Steele

From the 1913 edition of Webster:

Op"tion*al (?), a.

Involving an option; depending on the exercise of an option; left to one's discretion or choice; not compulsory; as, optional studies; it is optional with you to go or stay.
--

n.

See Elective, n.

If to the former the movement was not optional, it was the same that the latter chose when it was optional. Palfrey.

Original writs are either optional or peremptory. Blackstone.
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Optional means NOT COMPULSORY, meaning you don't have to do it. Meaning you didn't have to do it to get full points. Screw your prof over on their choice of words... go for it.

Actually, if you want to be pedantic I guess most of the questions in the paper are "optional".

You don't, I assume, have to answer all the questions to get a pass and therefore, it is up to the student to choose which questions to answer, which to leave (whether by choice, running out of time or not knowing the answer) and what order to do them in.

To be honest, if I saw optional on an exam paper I would assume
(a) that I didn't need to answer this bit to pass so therefore it might be a good idea to leave it and come back to it as maybe it wasn't as heavily weighted as the rest of the paper
(b) if I was going to go for top marks then I would have to answer ALL THE QUESTIONS ON THE PAPER regardless of whether they were marked optional or not. If there weren't any marks allocated to them then they wouldn't be on the paper would they?

well, we did get points deducted for NOT doing the optonal part.. this is even funnier, after the student had stormed out of the classroom, she went to talk to the head of the department.. i know that it's far from over lol. raverboy