I live in a fairly small population area with a University, which is not the most highly rated. Although I only took a few courses, my experience was surprising.

One of the courses I took was a 3rd year course typically taken by 4th year electrical engineering students. The marks for the course were based fifty percent each on two exams, one take home over the month of chrismas and the other an open book exam at the end. I had special approval to take the course with the other 25 students being 4th year electrical engineering students.

Of course, I procrastinated and did the take home exam two days before the end of the month. It was surprisingly easy with a few questions I could have answered in grade 12 physics and the rest being reasonably basic. The first question was interesting in the fact it was a very basic electrical circuit rearranged to look complicated.

So the results came in and I had made one minor mistake and lost a couple percentage points. I think out of disgust, the professor decided to let the class know the overall results. The second highest mark was 46% and the average was around 38%. I was the only one who got the first question right, which was a basic grade 12 question.

I realized after writing the final exam, the professor had simplified it to ensure all the students would have reasonable marks. One question was "Name 3 parts of a computer?". So keyboard, screen and power button would qualify as an answer. Apparently this professor had often been in hot water for making these supposedly overly complicated exams.

As one of my cousins teaches a basic electrical course at a community college, I told him the story and gave him the question. He typically teaches one of his courses to first year apprentice students who are take 6 weeks of training and the rest working as an apprentice. At the same time I was tutoring one of his air conditioning apprentice students, he decided to offer up the question from my former exam as class work to these students. Quite a few of them were able to answer the question.

I found this to be a little bit scary. Even scarier is the number of similar observations I have made in the workplace.

Last edited by JamieH; 03/08/11 08:25 PM.