Who wears the smartypants in our family?
Nothing says Valentine's Day romance like snuggling up with your loved one and a lovely accounting text book.
Yes, that's right my friends. We spent V-Day studying. Hey, at least we were studying together. We lit some candles...does that count for anything?
I logged on to the course site just to look around, see what the classmates were up to, that sort of thing. We took the mid-term last Friday and knew that our scores would be increased by one point, as one of the questions (the first one, actually) didn't have the correct answer displayed and the instructor promised to credit all of us for that. Being Anal-Retentive Student, I wanted to make sure that correction had been made.
I checked out the page that shows my overall grades and saw that my mid-term, which had been a 34/39 and should have been corrected to a 35/39, was now sitting at a 39/39. Huh? Not that I'm going to argue, but still, that's kind of strange. I mentioned it to M, who at this point hadn't started studying yet and was instead surfing for news. He looked quizically at me but didn't move off MSNBC. I flipped over to the graded test page and saw that yes, our instructor Charles had indeed corrected my test to give credit for the wonky question. Score on test page: 35/39. Score on assessment summary page: 39/39.
Totally confused at this point, I went to the discussion board, where I found this message:
I find I must apply a curve to the mid-term to make it equitable.
Charles
Woah.
I read the post to M, and his face lit up. "If you got 39/39, and I missed one less than you...!!!!" I've never seen the boy's fingers move so fast over a keyboard, especially to log in to an on-line classroom.
Within 2 minutes he was up and dancing (literally, dancing...totally like a white guy, mind you, but dancing) around the dining room table. This was accompanied by a little song he wrote off-the-cuff that had a refrain of "I set the cuuuuuurve! I set the cuuuuuurve! Iiiiiiii seeeeeet the cuuuuuuurve!"
After finishing this display of joy and academic prowess, he plopped back down in his chair and began frantically typing again, first pulling up the spreadsheet he created (of course) to track our progress through the term. Finding out that he can basically get a 65% on the final and still get an A in the class (assuming our assignments and assessments stay on track) sent him into another paroxysm of glee.
I said, "Methinks it's obvious you've never set the curve before now."
He said, "Shut up."
Then he claimed that in one of his classes at Rolla he did really, really well. Machine Design or some such nonsense. I know it wasn't 20th Century Literature. He never came right out and said he set the curve though, so I'm still pretty sure this week was his first curve-setting achievement.
After all this, it became blindingly evident to him that it wasn't enough to share this news of his overwhelming intelligence with his wife. "I gotta call someone!" He called his dad (how cute is that?!).
After listening to his son tell him how he'd set the curve, and offering congratulations and a few "atta boys," Dad said, "Wow. I think you're so excited because you've never set the curve before."
Priceless.
M wanted me to do a screen-shot of his grade (40/39) and post it here with the question, "Who do you think achieved this? M or A?" I told him to get his own damn blog. His dad said, "Just wait until you get into the touchy-feely MBA classes. I think your wife is gonna clean your clock in those."
Until then, I must live with the fact that M's grade in the class is 100.32% while mine is a lowly 99.63%, and that he, at least currently, wears the smartypants in our family. Sigh. It's going to be a long four weeks until the term ends.
He tried to console me with, "our scores both round to the same number: 100%." I, being the competitive girl I am (which is why I think I fit so well into his family, a bunch of ultra-hyper-competitive freaks) told him to shove it. I'm going to push for our next class to be one of those touchy-feely ones Dad talked about.
Yes, that's right my friends. We spent V-Day studying. Hey, at least we were studying together. We lit some candles...does that count for anything?
I logged on to the course site just to look around, see what the classmates were up to, that sort of thing. We took the mid-term last Friday and knew that our scores would be increased by one point, as one of the questions (the first one, actually) didn't have the correct answer displayed and the instructor promised to credit all of us for that. Being Anal-Retentive Student, I wanted to make sure that correction had been made.
I checked out the page that shows my overall grades and saw that my mid-term, which had been a 34/39 and should have been corrected to a 35/39, was now sitting at a 39/39. Huh? Not that I'm going to argue, but still, that's kind of strange. I mentioned it to M, who at this point hadn't started studying yet and was instead surfing for news. He looked quizically at me but didn't move off MSNBC. I flipped over to the graded test page and saw that yes, our instructor Charles had indeed corrected my test to give credit for the wonky question. Score on test page: 35/39. Score on assessment summary page: 39/39.
Totally confused at this point, I went to the discussion board, where I found this message:
I find I must apply a curve to the mid-term to make it equitable.
Charles
Woah.
I read the post to M, and his face lit up. "If you got 39/39, and I missed one less than you...!!!!" I've never seen the boy's fingers move so fast over a keyboard, especially to log in to an on-line classroom.
Within 2 minutes he was up and dancing (literally, dancing...totally like a white guy, mind you, but dancing) around the dining room table. This was accompanied by a little song he wrote off-the-cuff that had a refrain of "I set the cuuuuuurve! I set the cuuuuuurve! Iiiiiiii seeeeeet the cuuuuuuurve!"
After finishing this display of joy and academic prowess, he plopped back down in his chair and began frantically typing again, first pulling up the spreadsheet he created (of course) to track our progress through the term. Finding out that he can basically get a 65% on the final and still get an A in the class (assuming our assignments and assessments stay on track) sent him into another paroxysm of glee.
I said, "Methinks it's obvious you've never set the curve before now."
He said, "Shut up."
Then he claimed that in one of his classes at Rolla he did really, really well. Machine Design or some such nonsense. I know it wasn't 20th Century Literature. He never came right out and said he set the curve though, so I'm still pretty sure this week was his first curve-setting achievement.
After all this, it became blindingly evident to him that it wasn't enough to share this news of his overwhelming intelligence with his wife. "I gotta call someone!" He called his dad (how cute is that?!).
After listening to his son tell him how he'd set the curve, and offering congratulations and a few "atta boys," Dad said, "Wow. I think you're so excited because you've never set the curve before."
Priceless.
M wanted me to do a screen-shot of his grade (40/39) and post it here with the question, "Who do you think achieved this? M or A?" I told him to get his own damn blog. His dad said, "Just wait until you get into the touchy-feely MBA classes. I think your wife is gonna clean your clock in those."
Until then, I must live with the fact that M's grade in the class is 100.32% while mine is a lowly 99.63%, and that he, at least currently, wears the smartypants in our family. Sigh. It's going to be a long four weeks until the term ends.
He tried to console me with, "our scores both round to the same number: 100%." I, being the competitive girl I am (which is why I think I fit so well into his family, a bunch of ultra-hyper-competitive freaks) told him to shove it. I'm going to push for our next class to be one of those touchy-feely ones Dad talked about.
posted by Amy at 12:48 PM
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