Marking

To all those who think they know marking pain I would ask the following: Have you ever marked a first year linear algebra exam where they weren't allowed a calculator¹? If not, well let me just say that it's still full of the usual "hmm... I have no idea how to do this question, but if I waste the marker's time by asking them to painstakingly verify that this page of formal-looking statements is, in fact, gibberish .... well, this can only bode well for me"-type answers. In addition, you get people who write statements such as : "no calulator! ....1/52 ≈ 1/50, 1/50 ⋅ 102 = 2.04 ... so I'm going to write 1/52 ⋅ 102 as 2.04". Anyways, if ever you find yourself in such a situation I would advise you to do as I have. Print out a small pile of this comic, mark the offending answers down as harshly as your mood takes you, then staple a copy of said comic to their answer sheet.

¹Strictly this isn't true. They weren't allowed a graphics calculator, since they were being tested on (amongst other things) Gauss-Jordan elimination. Unfortunately, almost half the class in the exam I was supervising interpreted "not allowed a graphics calculator" to mean "allowed a graphics calculator", and so had to do the exam with no calculator at all. The questions weren't really such that you really needed one .... but there seems to have been an unfortunate correlation between those who owned only a graphics calculator and those who were scared of non-decimal fractions.