Now that I'm startin' to learn I feel I'm growin' old

Yesterday I had to proctor another exam. I always joke that the only good thing about proctoring is that I get to look at all the pretty girls in the class, except, I'm not really joking.

We all showed up a few minutes early, and while we were waiting until we were able to pass out the exams, the professor came up to talk to me.

Him: Some of the students have approached me to see if I could do something about the way you look at them during the exam. They said it makes them feel uncomfortable.
Me: No they didn't.
Him: I couldn't even get all the way through that with a straight face.
Me: And you know what else? Even if they did say that, tough.

Any time we proctor, students are bound to run into questions they need additional clarification on. It's just part of the stress of the situation, and they want to make sure they're not going to be losing any unnecessary points. They'll usually ask for clarification without really thinking about what they're asking. For example, yesterday I was asked, "By constant, does he mean stable?", and "What does he mean by 'first step'?"

Usually I just restate the question for them, but I'm often tempted to be real sarcastic and say things like "Oh, by first step he really wants to know what happens at the end of the process." So, you can imagine the things that were running through my head when several students sought clarification on a question that asked about which group contained the largest animals.

"Does he mean largest in body size, or does he mean the most species?"

I told them he was talking about body size, but relayed the message on to the professor. He kind of rolled his eyes and said, "If I say I bought a large car does that mean I bought ten cars? Or, if I say you have a large bank account, does that mean you have ten bank accounts each with $1?"

Immediately after that, a blonde girl raised her hand and asked me the same question. I wanted to answer her by saying, "Well, if I say I have a large penis, what do I mean by that?"

Of course, sometimes they'll come across questions that are just poorly worded, and because of that are confusing. I make it a point to notify the instructor about those just in case he wants to make a general announcement so we don't have to answer the same question 100 times. When I came across one yesterday I showed it to him and told him I thought it was a poorly worded question.

Him: Hey, out of 60 questions there's bound to be 20 or 30 that are bad. Cut me some slack, it was four in the morning when I wrote it. Don't tell them that. Four in the morning and I was hammered*.

Once the exam was finished, we had to go grade the essay portion. The professor said that he was going to supply pizza for us while we graded (a standard practice for these things). On the way there, one of the TAs said that she hadn't eaten all day so she was starving.

Her: I was told we were having pizza, so I didn't eat earlier.
Me: Well, you could be like me and eat earlier and still eat pizza.
Her: No. That exceeds my caloric intake for the day, and I need to watch that. I have squish where there didn't used to be squish.

When we got there we talked about how he wanted us to grade the questions, what he was looking for in an answer, how many points each one was worth, etc.

Professor: I'll go over the answer key, then I'll leave . . .
Other TA (interrupting): And never come back?
Professor: . . . and get pizza. But that depends on whether I see an IPA.
Me: I would have said it depends on if I see a hot girl, but you say a beer. I can see where our priorities are different.
Professor: I wanted to keep it professional.
Me: Yeah, getting drunk on the job is real professional.

Surprisingly, the students did fairly well this time around, so I don't have any headache inducing answers to pass on. You'll have to wait until next time for that. I'm sure there will be plenty then.









*Just to be clear, I should probably point out that all these things are said in jest. He wasn't really drunk when he wrote the exam.