Grading Exams

The recent removal of the hour exam requirement has revealed more clearly a sadly neglected part of the educational value of finals. This value is derived through handing the bluebook back to the student with comments to indicate faults that may be avoided in the future. It has been common practice to return hour exams so that the student can take whatever complaints he may have to the grader for discussion. No such provision has been maintained on January and May finals, however. If sufficiently interested, the student can enclose a posteard on which his grade is returned. In all but a few cases this is as close as he gets to his corrected manuscript.

There has been considerable complaint from instructors on the poor quality of writing in exams. Little effort is made on their part to improve that standard, however. A few course heads have taken the trouble to permit the Student to see his exam before the grade has been recorded with the Registrar. But more have discouraged the student from doing so. In theory, the recording of grades before hearing complaints avoids a lot of trouble for the instructor, since the red tape involved in any change thereafter is virtually prohibitive. In practice, more careful grading and commenting on papers would climinate unjustified complaints.

The chief reason for the present lack of personal attention is caused by the excessive burden on the readers. In many courses, the instructor carries more than his share by grading graduate papers. The undergraduate burden, therefore, falls chiefly on the assistants, with an average of a little less than 100 papers per course. Since the Registrar's Office requires grades one week after the examination has been held, there is little opportunity for correcting papers thoroughly and in time for the students to see them. Fifteen minutes per paper is a generous estimate, for this amounts to a 25-hour work week. Moreover, in Government or Economics, for example, most of the readers are teaching fellows who have exams from their own course sections to grade.

Although there are few students who will wait for a week after their last exam in June for its return, there could be an improvement next year in the case of the February exams. The number of readers should be increased so that more attention can be paid to each paper and so that the process can be speeded up. The paper could thus be returned in time for the student to make any justified complaints before his grade is handed in. No increase in cost would he involved, since most departments pay their readers per paper. The instructive value of the mid-year exam would increase to fill the place of the hour exam, and many of the irregularities of the grading system would be removed.