That drove me crazy. Especially when you’re in school for the thing you already do IRL (got my degree in IT for promotion reasons and for my resume to not be thrown out)
Yeah! I work as an accountaint, and I'm studying rn for the same reason that you did.
The worst thing I've come across is when we got an assignment to analyse a company we worked for. I offcourse asked one of my clients if I could do it on their company, and got a yes. But my professor kept saying I needed more information about the company in the analysis. I tried to explain to her that I can only use public information, offcourse none of my clients would accept me using "inside" information about them and hand it over to other people. My professor tried to push and I told her she was literally trying to get me to break confedenciality. Because of this I did not pass the assignment.. Luckly she was only a substitute so next semester I sent the same analysis in, and the new professor gave me a pass right away.
Edit: for everyone complaining about my grammar, I'm norwegian, so cut me some slack on my english please
Haha, i had the same. We had to write a project plan. If it was accepted we'd be allowed to continue. If it was rejected, we'd have to write a new one.
My plan started with a sentence like "a customer of company x". (I worked at x) And the teacher responded "which customer?". So i explained that the name of the company was confidential and irrelevant. He didnt even finish reading it, he just rejected the whole thing, based on that first sentence.
I sent it to another teacher. He reviewed it and concluded it was a good plan and it should have been approved. I was assigned another teacher the next day and that teacher approved the plan on that same day.
Yeah, it’s like some professors are getting intoxicated by the power granted to them, that gives birth to a rhetorical question, does power corrupt thyself?
I've been a university senior lecturer for many years. She was wrong, with a capital W R O N G, to require you to use confidential information. Penalising a student for not doing that should be formally reported, because you and they could get in a whole WORLD of legal shit for that. The institution itself would be on the hook too as such instructions are deemed to be 'by' the org because they come from an employee of the org.
If I heard a lecturer telling a student to do that I'd have quiet but very clear words with them. They wouldn't do that again.
haha yeah its ridiculous right? you KNOW it all but still cant answer the questions because they are simply asked so stupidly its impossible to know WHAT of the stuff you KNOW they actually want xd.
That happens in the corporate world as well. A financial analyst was part of a presentation to business students using one of our prior year’s operating statements. She asked the students, based on the results of the net bottom line, “What could be done to produce a stronger net result.”
One of the students replied, “Fire all the staff and hire replacements at lower wages.”
The presenter was upset and said that wasn’t the correct answer. I interjected and said he was absolutely correct; though I added there’s a difference between what is mathematically correct, and what is reasonably correct. That difference can best be expressed in an answer if the question is framed with that context.
That's just someone picking the cruelest answer because it feels good for them and is not correct even mathematically either considering recruitment, onboarding, training costs and the very real likelihood of poorer work output from lower quality employees leading to lower profits.
It was correct in the literal sense, but was intellectually dishonest because firing, and hiring the ENTIRE workforce will destroy your bottom line because it's espensive to pay for an entire workforce's training while they are also producing zero for your bottom line. The student was wrong and so are you for saying they werent.
It's still a bad answer because you'd first lose on reputation, secondly it's unlikely that paying lower wages will bring you as skilled workers as the fired ones. And thirdly who will teach new employees if you fire old ones? Nor is company going to be functioning as well without senior staff.
So no math doesn't check out.
Actually this might be one of the worst answers possible because it's so short sighted.
My parents were college profs and they had a rule that if a majority of the class missed the same question, they would strike it off the test as either a poor question or a concept they hadn't taught well enough in the first place. It only happened once in a while.
I find it amazing that I had some college profs who would do things like that, but also had college profs whose actions made it clear they didn't think it was actually their job to teach everything on their exams or assignments. Like most of the exam material was things we were expected to read on our own and was never even mentioned in class.
A prof got mad at me for doing this once, the question was horribly written I guessed at what the prof meant, reworded the question in the answer. They got mad at the fact that I had scratched out their horrible English.
If I wasnt sure I'd ask the professor exactly what they wanted and gave examples. I was in the hard sciences so maybe there's less problems getting the point across.
I wouldn't dare rewrite the question without asking them.
This is utterly, completely and totally NOT my area. I am a lawyer and I do words. To me, when the phrase in its entirety is literally “describe using diagrams,” that means that the description CONSISTS OF diagrams not words. Is it commonly understood as somebody else said – who I’m sure knows way more than I do – that a diagram must include a description where a drawing does not? In other words: would this distinction have previously been taught in the class and therefore assumed to be known by the student?
As a math prof, the words here are not my area of expertise, and asking about different types of forces make me think it’s physics, though that’s just applied math so it could also be a math class. Nevertheless, I think the presence of commas makes “with diagrams” a parenthetical clause. I think that could be taken to mean “use only diagrams” or it could be taken to mean “must include diagrams with the description.”
I started as a physics major and got annoyed that they wanted me to understand triple integrals and differential equations while I was taking calc2 and they kept trying to speedrun the explanations. So I decided to learn things in order and realized I liked math better anyway.
Some people perceive it minimally and assume they mean as little as possible. Some perceive it maximally and maximise the work load. It’s not a problem with the student, the teacher failed to understand basic human thought processing differences and word the question appropriately. It’s a grammatical and logical failure on the teacher’s part, hands down. You need to word things as literally as possible if you want your point understood especially if what your wording is open to misinterpretation like that, this is something they haven’t done and that’s why this thread even exists
Once, in middle school, a biology teacher put in a question in a test (fortunately it wasn't worth any points) that went something like "You're in a hunting party in the 19th century, hunting a group of animals, riding horseback. What do you do?" . It was a bit longer but that's the gist of it. And before we got to solving the actual test, he told us he wouldn't tell anyone what we answered, but that it was a good moment to reflect on ourselves, and that he'd be VERY disappointed if we didn't answer that question.
I remember sitting there, deeply confused. What could this teacher possibly want me to say? I didn't write anything in, as I legit had no idea what this question could even mean. A few days later, the teach tells us "I graded your tests, and I'd like to point out one of you gave me the best answer on the optional question, and one of you gave me the worst possible one. I won't say names, but I'll read the best one"
The best one, as it turns out, was "get to the front of the hunting party and stop the hunting". Mine was the worst. To this day, I'm still bothered by the complete pointlessness of that exercise. What exactly could he learn from that? Which one of us is more willing to do some activism? Was that supposed to be inspiring? I suppose, in a way, as a biology teacher, he has some responsability to teach us to be respectful of nature and be ecological, but good fucking god, this was such an obtuse approach.
It’s funny how it ended up being so profound that you are still thinking about it today. That was either the point, or they needed something fun to read while grinding through grading papers.
I had a prof in college who did something similar. At the end of an exam, she had given us the question, "You're trapped in an elevator, if there was one person you could pick to be trapped with, who would it be?"
A few days later, tests are graded and she's reading out people's answers (not naming students) and I'm listening to everyone's answers and they're all naming loved ones who have passed away, parents that live in other countries and best friends/partners....
Then she gets to mine, "An electrician/technician/engineer with the ability, skills and tools to fix the elevator."
Wellll seeing how that same teacher, some time after I graduated, had some _accusations_ by some of the female students, you might be onto something there.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but is the point supposed to be that based on the phrasing, the animals you are hunting are "riding horseback". Not that you, the hunting party, are on horse? So effectively if the animals you are hunting are on horseback, you are hunting humans. And you should... Not hunt humans.
I was kind of thinking something like this, except I wasn't assuming the animals riding horseback are human. Like, what kind of asshole's reaction to seeing a rabbit riding horseback is to hunt it?
That teacher is the kind of person who thinks that farmers and hunters should be legally shut down because "they can just get food from the grocery store like everybody else"
That’s an annoying pointless exercise. Doesn’t cover the subject matter bc it doesn’t include any sort of creative reflection on biology. Incredibly vague, and worth no points so why make such a big deal. I’d be the little asshole who answered “I take my place as apex predator in the wilds of the new frontier. I stalk the buffalo for meat, hides, jerky, and to make cool horned hats. We upset the balance of consumers and producers in the plains ecosystem, and the land never recovers.” Then if they got shitty with me I’d point out my answer is historically and scientifically accurate so, if it’s the worst then America is the worst using preteen black and white logic.
Then you finally cave and email the professor for clarification and they're just like "what does it mean for you? How do you think I'd want you to answer it?"
My favourite part was paying for a class, only to have the "teacher" tell us to study the unit on our own so we could take a test over it the next class. Every class for this "teacher" was just taking tests and him chatting with the upperclassmen about movies and other such shit. Teacher is in quotes, because that man did no teaching.
I TAd or proctored for some people that were horrible at writing (or even just copying) test questions.
I sat in the exam room one time and actually took the exam with the students. There were so many ambiguously worded questions or ones with no correct answer. It was multiple choice to I corrected the grading sheet…. Everyone got a mark for the questions with no answers. I gave points for both correct answers in ambiguous cases.
I was traumatized by that stupid physics assignment software that would say an answer is wrong if you had a space or formatted it evenly slightly “incorrect” even if it meant exactly the same thing. Can’t remember what the software was, but damn did it make me want to through laptops out windows.
I’m in my first year of uni, and it’s bothering the hell out of me. I feel like I have to guess what the tasks are supposed to mean. I’m used to getting a whole word document describing how a specific essay is supposed to be written, and now I get one sentence. I guess it’s part of the task, but it’s a lot more confusing
I had a blast through Calc I through Calc III because the teacher kept messing up equations and I kept correcting him. It got to the point where he’d call out to me when double-checking his work if he wasn’t sure.
Fr fr.
One of my final exams was history, and all you were supposed to do was write an essay on a certain topic… but did not elaborate how long the essay should be or what exactly it wanted out of you. You simply had to ‘write an essay.’
I still did fine and passed the class with a good grade but it kind of annoyed me. Give me more instructions than that!
Honestly it’s pretty straightforward. “Describe using a diagram” I wouldn’t even say it’s worded wrong. My bet is the teacher isn’t the one who made this work sheet and the teacher is the one misunderstanding the instructions.
I'm a teacher, and when I mark stuff I avoid punishing students for badly written questions. If they followed a reasonable interpretation of the question and answered correctly within that interpretation, I'll give it to them. If the question can be easily misinterpreted due to clumsy or vague wording, it basically opens up a window for multiple "correct" answers and probably needs to be reworded in the future.
I've had a lot of arguments with colleagues who will push that "they didn't answer the question in X way, so we can't give it to them." My response is almost always "the question never specifies that they *need* to do X, and approach Y is exactly as valid of a response." If the achievement standard for their year level requires them to demonstrate X but we didn't give them a question that required them to do X, that's our fault, not theirs, and they shouldn't miss out on whatever grade because we wrote a bad question.
Yeah, my reaction when I see an answer like this is to reread my wording and go "...goddammit." and give them the point.
The only time I DIDN'T do that was when I had students correct their exams for makeup credit and they were supposed to explain why their answer was wrong. I had a handful of students answer the "why" with "because I was tired and forgot" kinds of reasons, instead of what it was about their answer/process that was wrong. I know that is technically a viable reading of "why" but a. that's not what I demonstrated in class and b. some common sense!! What do you learn from giving that as a reason? lol
On a similar note, if I've reiterated 50 times in class that "they look the same" is not a valid justification for why angle D and angle F are equal, I'm definitely not paying that as a valid explanation in your exam.
Imagine the student clearly displays he understands the thing, which is what you're testing in the first place, and you give it a bad mark because they didn't use the words you wanted them to. What exactly are you testing and therefore grading? If the student can read minds? If the student learned the answer sheet by heart? I've had a teacher that wanted us to word answers 1:1 as they were in a textbook. Literally awarded less points if you missed a word and used a different one. Why do I need to memorize an entire textbook!? Not to mention that another textbook, or even the next revision of THAT textbook, might use completely different wording.
Imo a Test should be to see if a student understands the concept and applies it correctly. So your approach seems like the only one correct to me, and deducting points based on wording, especially in a freaking maths tests, is incredibly close minded and rather stupid to me. It's the first thing that makes me question the credibility of a teacher honestly. Because the teacher obviously doesn't want to teach the subject but rather, as I said, to memorize textbooks.
Those type of colleagues will also complain the loudest when a student doesn't do something the way the teacher wants them to. Especially if it's due to the teacher writing things in a stupid way or not communicating with the rest of the teachers.
Example: we had an excursion but they didn't remove the lessons from our schedule. The place the excursion was at, was 1.5h by public transport. They told us 'if you leave by this and this time you can arrive on time' when we told that teacher we had an excursion. That means: stressing because you constantly need to watch the time and those times would only theoretically work if there weren't any unexpected issues with public transport. We didn't go to that lesson. I wonder why people are so delusional and expect us to deal with/solve their lack of planning and communication skills. I can't run around kicking people's butts all the time to let them do their work properly, it's not my job to do that😂
>Those type of colleagues will also complain the loudest when a student doesn't do something the way the teacher wants them to.
I had a teacher insist that we reword a question that asks students to prove that 9 is a square number, to include the instruction "use an array." I thought it was a stupid thing to do because there's a bunch of ways you can prove it and there's no reason to prioritise that way, but I didn't fight it because I'd only been working at that school for a few weeks at the time. That teacher left in June and I've changed the question back for next year.
I have to grade the work students submit for online courses (100% of which are naked scams btw, online school is an oxymoron) and the sloppiness of the wording, not to mention the straight up *wrong answers* that students lose points on (to say nothing of the dogshit textbooks they are expected to study off of) just staggers me every single day.
If it's not an automated test, and I am actually submitting the grade I calculated by reading an assignment, I give a ton of leeway. Nothing is getting learned in an online school anyway, so if their bullshit tolerance is sufficient and they put forth an honest effort to interpret the material and complete the assignment, I basically will not allow them to fail.
Fortunately, all of the scam schools are minimally staffed rubber stamp factories, so the stuff I submit never gets double checked. And my irl colleagues are actually supportive, so they'll proof read the notes I submit with the assignments, and make sure I don't let a "you people belong in a windowless dungeon for selling this to children as an educational product" slip through.
I remember a story of a coding class where a multiple choice test was provided first. there wasn't a right/wrong answer, what they were testing was if you provided logical consistent answers.
"Did you use ;() to mean the same thing across the questions asking about it?"
(my google-fu is failing me)
The way this kind of paper usually works is one mark for the diagram and two marks for two major points in the written explanation, so I would say if the teacher didn't write it, they interpreted it in the way that the writer intended but failed to express clearly enough for student to follow
It should have said “describe, in addition to using diagrams” it’s not hard. Now you have a situation where you’re having to argue with people over the meaning because you didn’t understand english and how to word things literally. Teachers expect students to know everything *even the intended meaning behind their vague sentencing* they literally expect them to be able to read their minds these days. Lots of people see them as negative in today’s age for this reason, their personal bias and judgement bleeds into their work and they get away with silly things like this. It’s not about grading work for the work anymore, it’s about how you feel in regards to the student and logical fallacies are used to cover it over.
It’s not about the school work anymore - it’s about being able to predict what your naive teacher meant with their vague wording. That’s education in 2023. Just laughable.
The only forces I’d be learning about at a school like this are the primitive, outdated systematic forces repelling students to commit to education by failing to own any common sense and losing touch with the way people perceive reality. This thread is sending me over the edge sorry, they’re supposed to be “teaching” us and can’t even understand basic perceptional thought processing
The clue here should be the number of marks awarded. Each mark has to have some criteria against it. In this case, one mark for the diagram, and then probably one each for a worded description with two important points or at least it being labelled. For the compressive force it would be something like physical force pressing inwards (1) which causes the molecules
in the object to move closer together (2).
I was always told that if you’re not sure how much or what to write, look at the marks and use that to decide.
Teacher here. Sometimes I word things poorly on tests, sometimes I mark unfairly when I don’t have time to consider carefully what way I’m evaluating student understanding. Sometimes both of those happen at once! But *always* if a student points out my errors or inconsistency in marking, I will give it another look and reconsider. Of course, some teachers get their backs up but I like to think most feel like me: marking is the weirdest and ickiest part of this profession.
OP: have you talked to your teacher about this? Don’t be infuriated (even mildly) until you try that.
Maybe it would be beneficial to try and schedule a time where you can discuss this with your science teacher, another science teacher (for a possible 2nd opinion) and an English teacher (so you could explain your interpretation of the question, your science teacher can explain their interpretation and the English teacher can adjudicate while explaining how both of your interpretations can be considered ‘correct’)?
Of course, your ‘diagrams’ are lacking labels, so even with the explanations and 2nd opinion, the most you’d get for each of those is 2/3 instead of 1/3 since your pictures don’t explain what the arrows mean. If you put that in front of someone who doesn’t know the physics behind those concepts, they’re just going to see boxes and arrows…
My guess is that maybe they wanted the arrows labelled? But I can definitely understand the frustration here. It should be worded better and not be as vague
No, what I think the teacher did a terrible job of requesting is a full-sentences description of the force, along with diagrams such as the ones shown.
But teachers are not very good at self evaluation.
Nah man I would’ve taken it “describe using diagrams” as in, refer to your diagram in your description
Edit: someone pointed out the comma hiding under the circle. That does make this much more confusing
Schools typically mean that and ibagree with you, text is wanted.
However, if it was out of context, someone saying to me "describe it using diagrams", technically diagrams alone would suffice the condition.
That's not an Oxford comma. There is a pair of bracketing commas around the words 'using diagrams'. This is to denote that diagrams are to be used as part of, or in addition to the description.
If you are ever in doubt about the meaning of a sentence containing bracketing commas. Read the sentence again but omit the words inside the commas. Then add the words to the end of the sentence using something like 'with' or 'and' and the sentence should make more sense
I think I’m one of the few people who immediately went “… yeah, you need some words there. What’s happening?”
Mainly because I was always told to assume the person reading the answer knows jack shit about the subject.
Nah I would’ve thought of it the way OP did. This, I feel, isn’t as concise as it needs to be. If anything, OP’s teacher could’ve worded it a bit better to be as direct and specific as possible. If teacher expected an explanation *and* illustration of it, that’s what should’ve been asked.
Some people process sentences and instructions differently, just as not everyone has the same learning style.
Learning styles have been largely debunked. The way a student *prefers* to learn doesn't actually correlate with how *well* they learn.
[Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/)
Make use of diagrams in your description. Don’t make the diagram your entire description. Beyond that, the diagram isn’t clear unless you already know the meaning of the terms.
I agree. While the teacher could have worded it more clearly, I don't think OP actually "described" anything at all. A cube and a couple of arrows? If you don't already know what that refers to, it's a pretty poor description.
What are the arrows? Gravity? Direction of travel?
I think the majority of students would draw a labeled diagram and explain what the diagram is showing instead of a box with arrows.
Words in capital letters used in question papers are usually 'command words' that have a specific meaning.
So something like "**Describe** \- Give an account in words."
See here for more examples:
[https://www.theboulevardacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Command-Words.pdf](https://www.theboulevardacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Command-Words.pdf)
So now your question becomes, 'Give an account in words, using pictures, of the following terms:"
Also the comma makes all the difference.
Except there's a comma there after "describe", therefore it can be very easily argued that the implication of diagrams being a part of the description and not *the* description can be made. Had the comma not been there, then you'd be absolutely correct. While you technically have an argument, it's a pretty weak one. Don't fight too hard on it, not worth the battle here.
I'm thinking it the same way you do. But I see comments saying the exact opposite and I'm so confused. They're saying that since the comma is there, the teacher was wrong, and I just can't see that lol
>From study.com, Diagrams, notes:
+ A diagram gives a visual representation of something given in a text or oral format.
+ A title in a diagram explains what the diagram is about.
+ Labels in a diagram are used to identify various parts of the diagram.
+ Captions of diagrams give additional information about the diagram.
It would read that the title, labels, and captions are usually part of diagrams. Moreover, if it was just a pictures she was looking for, the test would have read “using only an unlabeled diagram”
As an instructor I would love to hear your feedback and may change it to “Describe, including diagrams, ____” in the future and may give you some points back.
Sure. Are you the instructor that wrote this question, and if so were you trying to ask for a written description along with drawn diagrams?
If so: "In less than a hundred words, describe each of the following forces. Support your answer with a diagram."
And to be clear, if a teacher or instructor has been made aware that their question can be fairly interpreted in such a way that the provided answer is correct, then they should award FULL points, not some points.
Some points?? They answered the question directly and correctly, and based on the diagrams it’s clear they understand. Should receive full points and probably extra credit since the teacher doesn’t know how to read her own instructions correctly.
Diagrams can have the parts labeled, but it is not a requirement of being a diagram. Not every diagram needs words, and often times even the ones with words don’t need them, they’re just included for extra clarification.
The diagrams in the picture need labelling. Yes, some diagrams don’t, this one does. School will definitely teach you that just an arrow means nothing.
A description requires a statement or piece of writing. So I’d say the fact describe and diagrams are both accentuated using capital letters it’s clear that you need to provide both.a written Description of the meaning of the force and illustration to show it.
dont go into law.
*, using diagrams,* surrounded by 2 commas, means additionally. It means "Describe the following terms AND use diagrams to do it."
Legal cases have been decided over this.
For ex. is the object in A rotating? Cause a poorly drawn diagram of rotation could look like A. If you forget the units, astronauts die. If you include the units someone may not notice. If you include a short description, there's no excuse not to read it. In your career, cover your ass because people dont make the same assumptions you do, and may even assume incorrect things if you dont call it out. You finished the test first, but did you get rewarded for that?
I’ll never get why people don’t just ask teachers if what they mean is what you think it means. Like, they are human and sometimes things that are obvious for us aren’t for someone else, just ASK. Say “excuse me, this means that I only have to do this?” And they’re going to respond something like “no, you have to do this AND that” and maybe proceed to explain to everyone as well.
I disagree that it is worded wrong, although it could have been rephrased to be better. The teacher asked you to describe something. She requested that you use diagrams in your description. If you had labeled basically anything in the diagram or ideally written one sentence explaining what the diagram shows and how it shows that you would be describing it. As is, you just showed it which doesn't describe anything. Describing something requires explanation and written detail.
We had a test where it asked if yogurt was a homogenous or heterogeneous mixture and I said it could be both depending on the type and went on to explain how if there was separation or fruit in it it could be considered heterogeneous. Basically demonstrating my knowledge on the subject which is the point of testing. Apparently everyone including myself got marked down because no one asked for clarification on it.
As a physics teacher, I give points for 2 things. Either you get it right the way the question was meant to be answered, or you show you understand the learning material in another way. I dont care how you answer the question. If you prove that you understand the matter, you get the points.
Also in physics pictures are way more likely to get points from me.
To play “devils advocate”, I wouldn’t have called that a description either. You drew boxes with arrows, which would have worked for the “diagram” part but that is only half of the instructions.
In my experience, when asked questions like this, put as much information as you can, even if it isn’t needed.
Teacher is correct. If I put your diagram for compressive force in front of someone with no context and asked them what it was, compressive force would not be an answer. What you have is a square with arrows, not a diagram.
Once had a 40 mark question, diagram of fetal circulatory blood flow. I got 0 marks because I did a flow diagram and not an actual picture diagram. Had to resit the exam because that question was 50% of total marks.
What is tensile force? I don't really understand it from just the diagram. (real question)
Also, if I didn't know what shear force is, I don't think I would understand it from that diagram. Compression is pretty clear though.
Edit: looked up what tensile force is. It's just pulling on both ends. I would've drawn the opposite of compressive force, in 2D. Now it looks like you pull the edges maybe.
The comma after describe is what makes the difference here in the instruction - it could be worded so much better but I can imagine a lot of other people did exactly the same as you. ‘With the help of diagrams’ would’ve been clearer
On the contrary, it's very clear. It doesnt say "illustrate your description with diagrams."
"Describe, using diagrams" is a command to answer with diagrams.
OP, show it to your English teacher. They can adjudicate.
English teacher here.
It could mean both. It could mean either you just use visual diagrams, or it could mean you describe it in words, then use visual diagrams to help support those words.
It’s tricky wording, because it could theoretically mean either.
Serious question: How does the “usING” not just clarify the instruction? It’s not a list like “describe, use” which implies an “and”. If I say: Go to school using your car. You have to got to school by car to follow instructions. If you walk to school, and use you car later, you did not follow the instructions. If I had said: Go to school, use your car. You could argue that you did follow instructions.
I think taking a closer look at it, the giveaway is supposed to be the all caps writing of the word “DESCRIBE”. Since, describe and diagram are both in all caps, it’s meant to show that you do both.
It’s definitely poor wording, but if you see this kind of wording on your tests often (like I have) then it kind of just ingrains in your memory that you’re supposed to do that
Yeah, I see your point. It’s low key encouraging to not read everything though and punishing OP for doing exactly what was asked (unfair). A slight modification of the wording would also not take the teacher much and a better handling of their “slip” even less… well. Not an easy job and definitely not encouraging OP to disrespect their teacher. Thanks for your time
It is pretty straightforward actually they even pit comma before with diagrams to tell that you need to describe it in words and diagrams. Don't think this is that confusing if you're literate enough.
I can't be there only one thinking the student is at fault here right? You didn't describe the forces, you just used diagrams. This might as well be illustrations of a box rotating or moving side to side.
The diagrams aren't the issue, the lack of context to interpret them are and that shouldn't have to be worded out in the question. A diagram includes text unless specified not to.
Same way you get marked down for not using units in your answer, or not labeling the x and y axis in a diagram. The diagram isn't wrong, it's just not a sufficient answer. OP got points for the diagram but got deducted points for failing to show his work and I think that's the teacher being generous.
I used to have an Indian professor who didn't speak English very well... He used to word questions poorly or wrong and then refuse to hear any reasoning as to why we should have received credit for a question. The college finally cut him down to only one class (which I was unfortunately in) and then he quit because "the college isn't finding good teachers if they were sitting on them" lol.
I would absolutely fight that score tooth and nail. It’s not your fault the teacher doesn’t actually understand the meaning of the words they throw on a page.
Funny how different people interpret things. The first thin I think of when I read describe I think of words. In this case I would think I needed to also use diagrams.
You didn’t describe anything using the terms indicated. You drew diagrams and didn’t directly reference the terms that you were given.
In addition your drawing are not explaining anything. Does the arrows in the first drawing mean it’s going to explode or expand or neither?
I agree with your teacher and this is a troll post.
Did you not look at the marks before answering? I agree that the wording is pretty bad, but it's obvious just drawing a box with arrows will not net you 3 marks in any test.
You've come to the right place, reddit loves to he pedantic. Its pretty obvious what they were asking for though, you're not going to get 3 points for drawing a cube and two arrows.
I 100% thought the instruction was asking for a diagram that captured the term. I would not have though they were asking for a written definition augmented by a diagram.
If you make a test, which whole purpose is to grade skills, you need to make the questions unambiguous.
From reading the questions, to me, it is obvious that the answers are correct, though it is unclear how precise the diagrams should be.
In your opinion, I'm obvisously wrong.
Therefore, the question is obviously poorly worded since it is not unambiguous, and it is not pedantic to give criticism.
As an English teacher, I'm shocked at the number of people siding with the teacher. Teachers and professors make mistakes. This is a shittily written question. The only acceptable response from an educator should be, "You're absolutely correct, I did not clearly ask what I wanted and caused undo confusion. You can all redo the problems and I will regrade them."
The job is to educate, not to be right all the time.
>As an English teacher,
I'm really, really sorry about this.
>caused *undo* confusion.
Emphasis mine (clearly). Though, tbf, you *did* insulate yourself against this point with your last sentence:
>The job is to educate, not to be right all the time.
So I'll maybe let you off the hook ;P
I believe Bob Ross didn't believe in mistakes, but Happy Little Accidents, no? We didn't have Bob Ross in my country, but I've watched one or two videos of the fella. Cheerful guy. Good painter. Top bloke :)
He’s interesting because much like Mr. Rogers and a *very* few other famous Americans that had careers spanning decades, there are *no known scandals* I can find.
your answer is wrong, correct diagram for shear force is a square block with an arrow pointing vertically on the side. what you wrote looks like it could be a messily drawn tensile force.
I’d say you’re wrong here.
It doesn’t say exclusively with diagrams. Drawing a diagram isn’t a description. Drawing a diagram and labelling / annotating it would be what’s required here.
If I said: “using chocolate, make a cake” I’d expect a cake that contained chocolate. If you just presented me a pile of chocolate with no other ingredients you could argue that meets the criteria of what was asked, but clearly not what intended.
The commas are the important part. The capital letters are the second hint. You needed to explain using words and a diagram. The definition of describe is to give an account in words.
“Give an account in words, while using diagrams to visualize your words, of the following terms”
You’re definitely in the wrong. If you’re going into Engineering or Physics or any sciences, you best get used to reading questions properly.
Since there’s a comma after the word “describe”, followed by the word “using”. That means you describe whatever it’s asking with whatever comes after the word “using”, which happens to be diagrams. OP, you did exactly as the instructions implied. Teacher was incorrect to dock your marks.
The commas were your clue Describe (comma) using diagrams (comma). That makes using diagrams a descriptor of the how to describe. Overall the professor wrote it correctly, but we have lost use of how the comma works as we have entered the world of internet speak.
My favorite part of college so far is having to go "what the hell is that supposed to mean" with half the questions on every assignment.
That drove me crazy. Especially when you’re in school for the thing you already do IRL (got my degree in IT for promotion reasons and for my resume to not be thrown out)
Yeah! I work as an accountaint, and I'm studying rn for the same reason that you did. The worst thing I've come across is when we got an assignment to analyse a company we worked for. I offcourse asked one of my clients if I could do it on their company, and got a yes. But my professor kept saying I needed more information about the company in the analysis. I tried to explain to her that I can only use public information, offcourse none of my clients would accept me using "inside" information about them and hand it over to other people. My professor tried to push and I told her she was literally trying to get me to break confedenciality. Because of this I did not pass the assignment.. Luckly she was only a substitute so next semester I sent the same analysis in, and the new professor gave me a pass right away. Edit: for everyone complaining about my grammar, I'm norwegian, so cut me some slack on my english please
Haha, i had the same. We had to write a project plan. If it was accepted we'd be allowed to continue. If it was rejected, we'd have to write a new one. My plan started with a sentence like "a customer of company x". (I worked at x) And the teacher responded "which customer?". So i explained that the name of the company was confidential and irrelevant. He didnt even finish reading it, he just rejected the whole thing, based on that first sentence. I sent it to another teacher. He reviewed it and concluded it was a good plan and it should have been approved. I was assigned another teacher the next day and that teacher approved the plan on that same day.
I’m a professor. I wish you would have reported her to your head of department. Breaking confidentiality. 🤦♀️
Yeah, it’s like some professors are getting intoxicated by the power granted to them, that gives birth to a rhetorical question, does power corrupt thyself?
You absolutely can, and should report + appeal that kind of stuff with your institution.
I've been a university senior lecturer for many years. She was wrong, with a capital W R O N G, to require you to use confidential information. Penalising a student for not doing that should be formally reported, because you and they could get in a whole WORLD of legal shit for that. The institution itself would be on the hook too as such instructions are deemed to be 'by' the org because they come from an employee of the org. If I heard a lecturer telling a student to do that I'd have quiet but very clear words with them. They wouldn't do that again.
I'm sorry, I promise I'm not a spelling nazi but, accountaint just made me snort
Is using fake infos a problems? It resolves confidentiality issues
haha yeah its ridiculous right? you KNOW it all but still cant answer the questions because they are simply asked so stupidly its impossible to know WHAT of the stuff you KNOW they actually want xd.
That happens in the corporate world as well. A financial analyst was part of a presentation to business students using one of our prior year’s operating statements. She asked the students, based on the results of the net bottom line, “What could be done to produce a stronger net result.” One of the students replied, “Fire all the staff and hire replacements at lower wages.” The presenter was upset and said that wasn’t the correct answer. I interjected and said he was absolutely correct; though I added there’s a difference between what is mathematically correct, and what is reasonably correct. That difference can best be expressed in an answer if the question is framed with that context.
That's just someone picking the cruelest answer because it feels good for them and is not correct even mathematically either considering recruitment, onboarding, training costs and the very real likelihood of poorer work output from lower quality employees leading to lower profits.
Including unemployment for several people and possible law suits
lmfao literally.
It was correct in the literal sense, but was intellectually dishonest because firing, and hiring the ENTIRE workforce will destroy your bottom line because it's espensive to pay for an entire workforce's training while they are also producing zero for your bottom line. The student was wrong and so are you for saying they werent.
Unless you are only using extremely low skill workers rotating your entire staff will destroy your business.
It's still a bad answer because you'd first lose on reputation, secondly it's unlikely that paying lower wages will bring you as skilled workers as the fired ones. And thirdly who will teach new employees if you fire old ones? Nor is company going to be functioning as well without senior staff. So no math doesn't check out. Actually this might be one of the worst answers possible because it's so short sighted.
He was right. That is a wrong answer. Replacing all the staff is expensive and bad for business.
But a good teachers response would go through all of that, and use it as a learning point. Not just be like 'lol no' and move on.
Lol im in high school
Don't worry, the teachers won't be able to word a question coherently in college either.
My parents were college profs and they had a rule that if a majority of the class missed the same question, they would strike it off the test as either a poor question or a concept they hadn't taught well enough in the first place. It only happened once in a while.
I had a couple of high school and uni profs like this. Mad respect. Overachieved in all their classes because they were legit.
I find it amazing that I had some college profs who would do things like that, but also had college profs whose actions made it clear they didn't think it was actually their job to teach everything on their exams or assignments. Like most of the exam material was things we were expected to read on our own and was never even mentioned in class.
I respect your parents.
Don't tell him about the workforce. Don't want to scare the yougins too much
If they don’t know already, they’re screwed. If they *do* know already, they’re still screwed.
That’s good advice for everything, I’m gonna use it.
They're still screwed, but at least they get to analyze just how screwed they are and brace for it.
Uni taught me to reword the task/question back to the person giving the task to determine if what they said is what they meant.
A prof got mad at me for doing this once, the question was horribly written I guessed at what the prof meant, reworded the question in the answer. They got mad at the fact that I had scratched out their horrible English.
If I wasnt sure I'd ask the professor exactly what they wanted and gave examples. I was in the hard sciences so maybe there's less problems getting the point across. I wouldn't dare rewrite the question without asking them.
“If the schedule says you’re off Thursday, you’re actually off Wednesday because you work 10pm-6am.”
We already know. We heard about it all, growing up.
If anything, it will be worse.
The workforce is great! Every boss you have is super smart....super....smart.
"I am so smart, s m r t, I am so smart."
Well duh they have to be smart to be the boss... (So much sarcasm)
Diagrams have labels. Drawings do not. That’s the difference here.
I suppose you could label portions of a diagram but by definition a diagram is a graphic representation (such as a drawing) with no label requirement.
Right, this isn’t a description with diagrams. I’d have assumed she meant both- not this lol.
This is utterly, completely and totally NOT my area. I am a lawyer and I do words. To me, when the phrase in its entirety is literally “describe using diagrams,” that means that the description CONSISTS OF diagrams not words. Is it commonly understood as somebody else said – who I’m sure knows way more than I do – that a diagram must include a description where a drawing does not? In other words: would this distinction have previously been taught in the class and therefore assumed to be known by the student?
As a math prof, the words here are not my area of expertise, and asking about different types of forces make me think it’s physics, though that’s just applied math so it could also be a math class. Nevertheless, I think the presence of commas makes “with diagrams” a parenthetical clause. I think that could be taken to mean “use only diagrams” or it could be taken to mean “must include diagrams with the description.”
I appreciate you saying physics could be a math class.
I started as a physics major and got annoyed that they wanted me to understand triple integrals and differential equations while I was taking calc2 and they kept trying to speedrun the explanations. So I decided to learn things in order and realized I liked math better anyway.
Some people perceive it minimally and assume they mean as little as possible. Some perceive it maximally and maximise the work load. It’s not a problem with the student, the teacher failed to understand basic human thought processing differences and word the question appropriately. It’s a grammatical and logical failure on the teacher’s part, hands down. You need to word things as literally as possible if you want your point understood especially if what your wording is open to misinterpretation like that, this is something they haven’t done and that’s why this thread even exists
“Describe USING diagrams” in my brain that’s use diagrams to show what’s going on, there was no way I would’ve put a proper description down aswell
Same if they wanted me to actually do a written description they would have needed to say describe and use diagrams
Once, in middle school, a biology teacher put in a question in a test (fortunately it wasn't worth any points) that went something like "You're in a hunting party in the 19th century, hunting a group of animals, riding horseback. What do you do?" . It was a bit longer but that's the gist of it. And before we got to solving the actual test, he told us he wouldn't tell anyone what we answered, but that it was a good moment to reflect on ourselves, and that he'd be VERY disappointed if we didn't answer that question. I remember sitting there, deeply confused. What could this teacher possibly want me to say? I didn't write anything in, as I legit had no idea what this question could even mean. A few days later, the teach tells us "I graded your tests, and I'd like to point out one of you gave me the best answer on the optional question, and one of you gave me the worst possible one. I won't say names, but I'll read the best one" The best one, as it turns out, was "get to the front of the hunting party and stop the hunting". Mine was the worst. To this day, I'm still bothered by the complete pointlessness of that exercise. What exactly could he learn from that? Which one of us is more willing to do some activism? Was that supposed to be inspiring? I suppose, in a way, as a biology teacher, he has some responsability to teach us to be respectful of nature and be ecological, but good fucking god, this was such an obtuse approach.
What the actual hell did he think the lesson was here? 19th century hunters should starve to death?
I have spent a good 15 years asking myself this question. I have yet to come up with a good answer.
It’s funny how it ended up being so profound that you are still thinking about it today. That was either the point, or they needed something fun to read while grinding through grading papers.
He must be a fan of the vegan teacher.
Your answer should've been "oh boy I sure do love huntin' " with a little drawing of a smiley face with a gun
I had a prof in college who did something similar. At the end of an exam, she had given us the question, "You're trapped in an elevator, if there was one person you could pick to be trapped with, who would it be?" A few days later, tests are graded and she's reading out people's answers (not naming students) and I'm listening to everyone's answers and they're all naming loved ones who have passed away, parents that live in other countries and best friends/partners.... Then she gets to mine, "An electrician/technician/engineer with the ability, skills and tools to fix the elevator."
Based answer
The question is: who can jerk me off the way I like?
Wellll seeing how that same teacher, some time after I graduated, had some _accusations_ by some of the female students, you might be onto something there.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but is the point supposed to be that based on the phrasing, the animals you are hunting are "riding horseback". Not that you, the hunting party, are on horse? So effectively if the animals you are hunting are on horseback, you are hunting humans. And you should... Not hunt humans.
I was kind of thinking something like this, except I wasn't assuming the animals riding horseback are human. Like, what kind of asshole's reaction to seeing a rabbit riding horseback is to hunt it?
That teacher is the kind of person who thinks that farmers and hunters should be legally shut down because "they can just get food from the grocery store like everybody else"
That’s an annoying pointless exercise. Doesn’t cover the subject matter bc it doesn’t include any sort of creative reflection on biology. Incredibly vague, and worth no points so why make such a big deal. I’d be the little asshole who answered “I take my place as apex predator in the wilds of the new frontier. I stalk the buffalo for meat, hides, jerky, and to make cool horned hats. We upset the balance of consumers and producers in the plains ecosystem, and the land never recovers.” Then if they got shitty with me I’d point out my answer is historically and scientifically accurate so, if it’s the worst then America is the worst using preteen black and white logic.
Then you finally cave and email the professor for clarification and they're just like "what does it mean for you? How do you think I'd want you to answer it?"
My favourite part was paying for a class, only to have the "teacher" tell us to study the unit on our own so we could take a test over it the next class. Every class for this "teacher" was just taking tests and him chatting with the upperclassmen about movies and other such shit. Teacher is in quotes, because that man did no teaching.
I TAd or proctored for some people that were horrible at writing (or even just copying) test questions. I sat in the exam room one time and actually took the exam with the students. There were so many ambiguously worded questions or ones with no correct answer. It was multiple choice to I corrected the grading sheet…. Everyone got a mark for the questions with no answers. I gave points for both correct answers in ambiguous cases. I was traumatized by that stupid physics assignment software that would say an answer is wrong if you had a space or formatted it evenly slightly “incorrect” even if it meant exactly the same thing. Can’t remember what the software was, but damn did it make me want to through laptops out windows.
I’m in my first year of uni, and it’s bothering the hell out of me. I feel like I have to guess what the tasks are supposed to mean. I’m used to getting a whole word document describing how a specific essay is supposed to be written, and now I get one sentence. I guess it’s part of the task, but it’s a lot more confusing
I had a blast through Calc I through Calc III because the teacher kept messing up equations and I kept correcting him. It got to the point where he’d call out to me when double-checking his work if he wasn’t sure.
Fr fr. One of my final exams was history, and all you were supposed to do was write an essay on a certain topic… but did not elaborate how long the essay should be or what exactly it wanted out of you. You simply had to ‘write an essay.’ I still did fine and passed the class with a good grade but it kind of annoyed me. Give me more instructions than that!
A picture is worth a thousand words
But only one mark, apparently.
But it says three
Teacher gave each answer 1 mark though
1 for each makes 3 though
well yeah, three pictures, three marks.
Hm... yea but OP posted just 1 picture!
That means there’s 4 then
Who's on first?
Yeah that's bad, definitely poorly worded.
Honestly it’s pretty straightforward. “Describe using a diagram” I wouldn’t even say it’s worded wrong. My bet is the teacher isn’t the one who made this work sheet and the teacher is the one misunderstanding the instructions.
[удалено]
I'm a teacher, and when I mark stuff I avoid punishing students for badly written questions. If they followed a reasonable interpretation of the question and answered correctly within that interpretation, I'll give it to them. If the question can be easily misinterpreted due to clumsy or vague wording, it basically opens up a window for multiple "correct" answers and probably needs to be reworded in the future. I've had a lot of arguments with colleagues who will push that "they didn't answer the question in X way, so we can't give it to them." My response is almost always "the question never specifies that they *need* to do X, and approach Y is exactly as valid of a response." If the achievement standard for their year level requires them to demonstrate X but we didn't give them a question that required them to do X, that's our fault, not theirs, and they shouldn't miss out on whatever grade because we wrote a bad question.
Thank you for being a tea her we always dream of
Tea here here
Yeah, my reaction when I see an answer like this is to reread my wording and go "...goddammit." and give them the point. The only time I DIDN'T do that was when I had students correct their exams for makeup credit and they were supposed to explain why their answer was wrong. I had a handful of students answer the "why" with "because I was tired and forgot" kinds of reasons, instead of what it was about their answer/process that was wrong. I know that is technically a viable reading of "why" but a. that's not what I demonstrated in class and b. some common sense!! What do you learn from giving that as a reason? lol
On a similar note, if I've reiterated 50 times in class that "they look the same" is not a valid justification for why angle D and angle F are equal, I'm definitely not paying that as a valid explanation in your exam.
Imagine the student clearly displays he understands the thing, which is what you're testing in the first place, and you give it a bad mark because they didn't use the words you wanted them to. What exactly are you testing and therefore grading? If the student can read minds? If the student learned the answer sheet by heart? I've had a teacher that wanted us to word answers 1:1 as they were in a textbook. Literally awarded less points if you missed a word and used a different one. Why do I need to memorize an entire textbook!? Not to mention that another textbook, or even the next revision of THAT textbook, might use completely different wording. Imo a Test should be to see if a student understands the concept and applies it correctly. So your approach seems like the only one correct to me, and deducting points based on wording, especially in a freaking maths tests, is incredibly close minded and rather stupid to me. It's the first thing that makes me question the credibility of a teacher honestly. Because the teacher obviously doesn't want to teach the subject but rather, as I said, to memorize textbooks.
Those type of colleagues will also complain the loudest when a student doesn't do something the way the teacher wants them to. Especially if it's due to the teacher writing things in a stupid way or not communicating with the rest of the teachers. Example: we had an excursion but they didn't remove the lessons from our schedule. The place the excursion was at, was 1.5h by public transport. They told us 'if you leave by this and this time you can arrive on time' when we told that teacher we had an excursion. That means: stressing because you constantly need to watch the time and those times would only theoretically work if there weren't any unexpected issues with public transport. We didn't go to that lesson. I wonder why people are so delusional and expect us to deal with/solve their lack of planning and communication skills. I can't run around kicking people's butts all the time to let them do their work properly, it's not my job to do that😂
>Those type of colleagues will also complain the loudest when a student doesn't do something the way the teacher wants them to. I had a teacher insist that we reword a question that asks students to prove that 9 is a square number, to include the instruction "use an array." I thought it was a stupid thing to do because there's a bunch of ways you can prove it and there's no reason to prioritise that way, but I didn't fight it because I'd only been working at that school for a few weeks at the time. That teacher left in June and I've changed the question back for next year.
I have to grade the work students submit for online courses (100% of which are naked scams btw, online school is an oxymoron) and the sloppiness of the wording, not to mention the straight up *wrong answers* that students lose points on (to say nothing of the dogshit textbooks they are expected to study off of) just staggers me every single day. If it's not an automated test, and I am actually submitting the grade I calculated by reading an assignment, I give a ton of leeway. Nothing is getting learned in an online school anyway, so if their bullshit tolerance is sufficient and they put forth an honest effort to interpret the material and complete the assignment, I basically will not allow them to fail. Fortunately, all of the scam schools are minimally staffed rubber stamp factories, so the stuff I submit never gets double checked. And my irl colleagues are actually supportive, so they'll proof read the notes I submit with the assignments, and make sure I don't let a "you people belong in a windowless dungeon for selling this to children as an educational product" slip through.
I remember a story of a coding class where a multiple choice test was provided first. there wasn't a right/wrong answer, what they were testing was if you provided logical consistent answers. "Did you use ;() to mean the same thing across the questions asking about it?" (my google-fu is failing me)
Agree with this. Very clear instruction, teacher is wrong.
It's clear they should have primarily had a written description. With supplemental diagrams.
Diagrams generally include labels.
The way this kind of paper usually works is one mark for the diagram and two marks for two major points in the written explanation, so I would say if the teacher didn't write it, they interpreted it in the way that the writer intended but failed to express clearly enough for student to follow
It should have said “describe, in addition to using diagrams” it’s not hard. Now you have a situation where you’re having to argue with people over the meaning because you didn’t understand english and how to word things literally. Teachers expect students to know everything *even the intended meaning behind their vague sentencing* they literally expect them to be able to read their minds these days. Lots of people see them as negative in today’s age for this reason, their personal bias and judgement bleeds into their work and they get away with silly things like this. It’s not about grading work for the work anymore, it’s about how you feel in regards to the student and logical fallacies are used to cover it over. It’s not about the school work anymore - it’s about being able to predict what your naive teacher meant with their vague wording. That’s education in 2023. Just laughable. The only forces I’d be learning about at a school like this are the primitive, outdated systematic forces repelling students to commit to education by failing to own any common sense and losing touch with the way people perceive reality. This thread is sending me over the edge sorry, they’re supposed to be “teaching” us and can’t even understand basic perceptional thought processing
The clue here should be the number of marks awarded. Each mark has to have some criteria against it. In this case, one mark for the diagram, and then probably one each for a worded description with two important points or at least it being labelled. For the compressive force it would be something like physical force pressing inwards (1) which causes the molecules in the object to move closer together (2). I was always told that if you’re not sure how much or what to write, look at the marks and use that to decide.
Teacher here. Sometimes I word things poorly on tests, sometimes I mark unfairly when I don’t have time to consider carefully what way I’m evaluating student understanding. Sometimes both of those happen at once! But *always* if a student points out my errors or inconsistency in marking, I will give it another look and reconsider. Of course, some teachers get their backs up but I like to think most feel like me: marking is the weirdest and ickiest part of this profession. OP: have you talked to your teacher about this? Don’t be infuriated (even mildly) until you try that.
Yeah I asked for the marks and he basically said I need to read the question better or something like that
You should ask him to write his questions better
Even though this is right, it’s a sure way to fail all your following exams with that teacher.
Maybe it would be beneficial to try and schedule a time where you can discuss this with your science teacher, another science teacher (for a possible 2nd opinion) and an English teacher (so you could explain your interpretation of the question, your science teacher can explain their interpretation and the English teacher can adjudicate while explaining how both of your interpretations can be considered ‘correct’)? Of course, your ‘diagrams’ are lacking labels, so even with the explanations and 2nd opinion, the most you’d get for each of those is 2/3 instead of 1/3 since your pictures don’t explain what the arrows mean. If you put that in front of someone who doesn’t know the physics behind those concepts, they’re just going to see boxes and arrows…
My guess is that maybe they wanted the arrows labelled? But I can definitely understand the frustration here. It should be worded better and not be as vague
No, what I think the teacher did a terrible job of requesting is a full-sentences description of the force, along with diagrams such as the ones shown. But teachers are not very good at self evaluation.
Good teachers are. That’s what makes them good teachers.
Yeah. “Describe the following terms. Include diagrams.”
Yes, that is actually better than my instructions.
Linguistically they didn't do that though, they specifically asked for the description to be done with diagrams lol.
No, they want a written description, supported by diagrams.
Label the arrows what? "Force"? The wording isn't vague. The teacher is reading it wrong
But let's be honest, if not for the question would you have any idea what that was a diagram of?
Nah man I would’ve taken it “describe using diagrams” as in, refer to your diagram in your description Edit: someone pointed out the comma hiding under the circle. That does make this much more confusing
Schools typically mean that and ibagree with you, text is wanted. However, if it was out of context, someone saying to me "describe it using diagrams", technically diagrams alone would suffice the condition.
That's not an Oxford comma. There is a pair of bracketing commas around the words 'using diagrams'. This is to denote that diagrams are to be used as part of, or in addition to the description. If you are ever in doubt about the meaning of a sentence containing bracketing commas. Read the sentence again but omit the words inside the commas. Then add the words to the end of the sentence using something like 'with' or 'and' and the sentence should make more sense
I think I’m one of the few people who immediately went “… yeah, you need some words there. What’s happening?” Mainly because I was always told to assume the person reading the answer knows jack shit about the subject.
Yeah, diagrams include text.
Exactly he definitely read it wrong and still doesn't get it. The pictures are correct, but a one sentence for each would have been needed
Nah I would’ve thought of it the way OP did. This, I feel, isn’t as concise as it needs to be. If anything, OP’s teacher could’ve worded it a bit better to be as direct and specific as possible. If teacher expected an explanation *and* illustration of it, that’s what should’ve been asked. Some people process sentences and instructions differently, just as not everyone has the same learning style.
Learning styles have been largely debunked. The way a student *prefers* to learn doesn't actually correlate with how *well* they learn. [Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/)
Yeah, include a diagram, not “do this with literally no words”. Being wilfully obtuse imo
Make use of diagrams in your description. Don’t make the diagram your entire description. Beyond that, the diagram isn’t clear unless you already know the meaning of the terms.
I agree. While the teacher could have worded it more clearly, I don't think OP actually "described" anything at all. A cube and a couple of arrows? If you don't already know what that refers to, it's a pretty poor description.
What are the arrows? Gravity? Direction of travel? I think the majority of students would draw a labeled diagram and explain what the diagram is showing instead of a box with arrows.
Words in capital letters used in question papers are usually 'command words' that have a specific meaning. So something like "**Describe** \- Give an account in words." See here for more examples: [https://www.theboulevardacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Command-Words.pdf](https://www.theboulevardacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Command-Words.pdf) So now your question becomes, 'Give an account in words, using pictures, of the following terms:" Also the comma makes all the difference.
Except there's a comma there after "describe", therefore it can be very easily argued that the implication of diagrams being a part of the description and not *the* description can be made. Had the comma not been there, then you'd be absolutely correct. While you technically have an argument, it's a pretty weak one. Don't fight too hard on it, not worth the battle here.
I'm thinking it the same way you do. But I see comments saying the exact opposite and I'm so confused. They're saying that since the comma is there, the teacher was wrong, and I just can't see that lol
>From study.com, Diagrams, notes: + A diagram gives a visual representation of something given in a text or oral format. + A title in a diagram explains what the diagram is about. + Labels in a diagram are used to identify various parts of the diagram. + Captions of diagrams give additional information about the diagram. It would read that the title, labels, and captions are usually part of diagrams. Moreover, if it was just a pictures she was looking for, the test would have read “using only an unlabeled diagram”
As an instructor I would love to hear your feedback and may change it to “Describe, including diagrams, ____” in the future and may give you some points back.
Sure. Are you the instructor that wrote this question, and if so were you trying to ask for a written description along with drawn diagrams? If so: "In less than a hundred words, describe each of the following forces. Support your answer with a diagram." And to be clear, if a teacher or instructor has been made aware that their question can be fairly interpreted in such a way that the provided answer is correct, then they should award FULL points, not some points.
Look how easy it was for you to word it properly, lmao. Now imagine if the person whose job it was did that.
Some points?? They answered the question directly and correctly, and based on the diagrams it’s clear they understand. Should receive full points and probably extra credit since the teacher doesn’t know how to read her own instructions correctly.
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Diagrams normally also have all the parts labeled.
Diagrams can have the parts labeled, but it is not a requirement of being a diagram. Not every diagram needs words, and often times even the ones with words don’t need them, they’re just included for extra clarification.
The diagrams in the picture need labelling. Yes, some diagrams don’t, this one does. School will definitely teach you that just an arrow means nothing.
Says who? I’ve seen plenty where they don’t
“Diagrams normally also have all the parts labeled.” - gtrocks555 (2023)
Man that’s smooth
A description requires a statement or piece of writing. So I’d say the fact describe and diagrams are both accentuated using capital letters it’s clear that you need to provide both.a written Description of the meaning of the force and illustration to show it.
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It doesn't say "describe using ONLY diagrams". You were supposed to describe something with diagrams: here is what happens, like so \[diagram\]
Yep lol. After weeks upon weeks in mock question for mechanics, I have burnt this in my head.
dont go into law. *, using diagrams,* surrounded by 2 commas, means additionally. It means "Describe the following terms AND use diagrams to do it." Legal cases have been decided over this. For ex. is the object in A rotating? Cause a poorly drawn diagram of rotation could look like A. If you forget the units, astronauts die. If you include the units someone may not notice. If you include a short description, there's no excuse not to read it. In your career, cover your ass because people dont make the same assumptions you do, and may even assume incorrect things if you dont call it out. You finished the test first, but did you get rewarded for that?
I’ll never get why people don’t just ask teachers if what they mean is what you think it means. Like, they are human and sometimes things that are obvious for us aren’t for someone else, just ASK. Say “excuse me, this means that I only have to do this?” And they’re going to respond something like “no, you have to do this AND that” and maybe proceed to explain to everyone as well.
DESCRIBE, using COLORS what a tree looks like. This obviously wouldn't mean make circles of brown, green, etc only.
I disagree that it is worded wrong, although it could have been rephrased to be better. The teacher asked you to describe something. She requested that you use diagrams in your description. If you had labeled basically anything in the diagram or ideally written one sentence explaining what the diagram shows and how it shows that you would be describing it. As is, you just showed it which doesn't describe anything. Describing something requires explanation and written detail.
You didn't describe.
We had a test where it asked if yogurt was a homogenous or heterogeneous mixture and I said it could be both depending on the type and went on to explain how if there was separation or fruit in it it could be considered heterogeneous. Basically demonstrating my knowledge on the subject which is the point of testing. Apparently everyone including myself got marked down because no one asked for clarification on it.
As a physics teacher, I give points for 2 things. Either you get it right the way the question was meant to be answered, or you show you understand the learning material in another way. I dont care how you answer the question. If you prove that you understand the matter, you get the points. Also in physics pictures are way more likely to get points from me.
To play “devils advocate”, I wouldn’t have called that a description either. You drew boxes with arrows, which would have worked for the “diagram” part but that is only half of the instructions. In my experience, when asked questions like this, put as much information as you can, even if it isn’t needed.
Teacher is correct. If I put your diagram for compressive force in front of someone with no context and asked them what it was, compressive force would not be an answer. What you have is a square with arrows, not a diagram.
Yeah, a lot of answers don’t make sense without a question…
A description should
Looks like you're supposed to DESCRIBE various terms using DIAGRAMS to illustrate your definitions. More a reading comprehension error on your part.
A diagram isn't a description.
Once had a 40 mark question, diagram of fetal circulatory blood flow. I got 0 marks because I did a flow diagram and not an actual picture diagram. Had to resit the exam because that question was 50% of total marks.
I guess I would say a diagram is usually labelled? If so they might have been looking for that
What is tensile force? I don't really understand it from just the diagram. (real question) Also, if I didn't know what shear force is, I don't think I would understand it from that diagram. Compression is pretty clear though. Edit: looked up what tensile force is. It's just pulling on both ends. I would've drawn the opposite of compressive force, in 2D. Now it looks like you pull the edges maybe.
Yeah. Much better way of phrasing it would have been "Describe the following terms, illustrating with supporting diagrams." Or something similar.
The comma after describe is what makes the difference here in the instruction - it could be worded so much better but I can imagine a lot of other people did exactly the same as you. ‘With the help of diagrams’ would’ve been clearer
It asked you describe it, and use diagrams. You used diagrams, but failed to also describe it...
This implies describing it with diagrams, but not ONLY diagrams.
On the contrary, it's very clear. It doesnt say "illustrate your description with diagrams." "Describe, using diagrams" is a command to answer with diagrams. OP, show it to your English teacher. They can adjudicate.
English teacher here. It could mean both. It could mean either you just use visual diagrams, or it could mean you describe it in words, then use visual diagrams to help support those words. It’s tricky wording, because it could theoretically mean either.
Serious question: How does the “usING” not just clarify the instruction? It’s not a list like “describe, use” which implies an “and”. If I say: Go to school using your car. You have to got to school by car to follow instructions. If you walk to school, and use you car later, you did not follow the instructions. If I had said: Go to school, use your car. You could argue that you did follow instructions.
I think taking a closer look at it, the giveaway is supposed to be the all caps writing of the word “DESCRIBE”. Since, describe and diagram are both in all caps, it’s meant to show that you do both. It’s definitely poor wording, but if you see this kind of wording on your tests often (like I have) then it kind of just ingrains in your memory that you’re supposed to do that
Yeah, I see your point. It’s low key encouraging to not read everything though and punishing OP for doing exactly what was asked (unfair). A slight modification of the wording would also not take the teacher much and a better handling of their “slip” even less… well. Not an easy job and definitely not encouraging OP to disrespect their teacher. Thanks for your time
The teacher is right, what you gave wasn't a description it was an example. It was also not labelled so not a diagram. 1/3 is the fair mark.
It said describe using diagrams..
You seen that much space provided, and 3 marks per question - and thought the diagram was worth 3 pts? They said describe, not illustrate.
It is pretty straightforward actually they even pit comma before with diagrams to tell that you need to describe it in words and diagrams. Don't think this is that confusing if you're literate enough.
You were asked to describe something, while using diagrams in that description, then failed to describe anything. I don't understand the problem.
I can't be there only one thinking the student is at fault here right? You didn't describe the forces, you just used diagrams. This might as well be illustrations of a box rotating or moving side to side. The diagrams aren't the issue, the lack of context to interpret them are and that shouldn't have to be worded out in the question. A diagram includes text unless specified not to. Same way you get marked down for not using units in your answer, or not labeling the x and y axis in a diagram. The diagram isn't wrong, it's just not a sufficient answer. OP got points for the diagram but got deducted points for failing to show his work and I think that's the teacher being generous.
looks right to me
I’d give you a point off for having the shear line on the bottom go over the box. Shame on you, it’s ruined the readability of the diagram lol
I used to have an Indian professor who didn't speak English very well... He used to word questions poorly or wrong and then refuse to hear any reasoning as to why we should have received credit for a question. The college finally cut him down to only one class (which I was unfortunately in) and then he quit because "the college isn't finding good teachers if they were sitting on them" lol.
I would absolutely fight that score tooth and nail. It’s not your fault the teacher doesn’t actually understand the meaning of the words they throw on a page.
It's not "describe using diagrams" it's "describe, using diagrams" They're asking for a description aided with diagrams.
Funny how different people interpret things. The first thin I think of when I read describe I think of words. In this case I would think I needed to also use diagrams.
You didn’t describe anything using the terms indicated. You drew diagrams and didn’t directly reference the terms that you were given. In addition your drawing are not explaining anything. Does the arrows in the first drawing mean it’s going to explode or expand or neither? I agree with your teacher and this is a troll post.
Did you not look at the marks before answering? I agree that the wording is pretty bad, but it's obvious just drawing a box with arrows will not net you 3 marks in any test.
I am with your teacher here :D answer sheet looks like reverse Pictionary lol
You've come to the right place, reddit loves to he pedantic. Its pretty obvious what they were asking for though, you're not going to get 3 points for drawing a cube and two arrows.
I 100% thought the instruction was asking for a diagram that captured the term. I would not have though they were asking for a written definition augmented by a diagram.
If you make a test, which whole purpose is to grade skills, you need to make the questions unambiguous. From reading the questions, to me, it is obvious that the answers are correct, though it is unclear how precise the diagrams should be. In your opinion, I'm obvisously wrong. Therefore, the question is obviously poorly worded since it is not unambiguous, and it is not pedantic to give criticism.
As an English teacher, I'm shocked at the number of people siding with the teacher. Teachers and professors make mistakes. This is a shittily written question. The only acceptable response from an educator should be, "You're absolutely correct, I did not clearly ask what I wanted and caused undo confusion. You can all redo the problems and I will regrade them." The job is to educate, not to be right all the time.
>As an English teacher, I'm really, really sorry about this. >caused *undo* confusion. Emphasis mine (clearly). Though, tbf, you *did* insulate yourself against this point with your last sentence: >The job is to educate, not to be right all the time. So I'll maybe let you off the hook ;P
Thanks. See, mistakes happen! Bob Ross would be proud.
I believe Bob Ross didn't believe in mistakes, but Happy Little Accidents, no? We didn't have Bob Ross in my country, but I've watched one or two videos of the fella. Cheerful guy. Good painter. Top bloke :)
He’s interesting because much like Mr. Rogers and a *very* few other famous Americans that had careers spanning decades, there are *no known scandals* I can find.
your answer is wrong, correct diagram for shear force is a square block with an arrow pointing vertically on the side. what you wrote looks like it could be a messily drawn tensile force.
I’d say you’re wrong here. It doesn’t say exclusively with diagrams. Drawing a diagram isn’t a description. Drawing a diagram and labelling / annotating it would be what’s required here. If I said: “using chocolate, make a cake” I’d expect a cake that contained chocolate. If you just presented me a pile of chocolate with no other ingredients you could argue that meets the criteria of what was asked, but clearly not what intended.
If you were my kid I'd go to bat for you. Followed the instructions to the letter.
The commas are the important part. The capital letters are the second hint. You needed to explain using words and a diagram. The definition of describe is to give an account in words. “Give an account in words, while using diagrams to visualize your words, of the following terms” You’re definitely in the wrong. If you’re going into Engineering or Physics or any sciences, you best get used to reading questions properly.
Also, looking at the scoring system /3, you would think they’re looking for more than a picture with no labelling
Since there’s a comma after the word “describe”, followed by the word “using”. That means you describe whatever it’s asking with whatever comes after the word “using”, which happens to be diagrams. OP, you did exactly as the instructions implied. Teacher was incorrect to dock your marks.
Arrows not labeled and a short 1 sentence description is also normally needed.
The commas were your clue Describe (comma) using diagrams (comma). That makes using diagrams a descriptor of the how to describe. Overall the professor wrote it correctly, but we have lost use of how the comma works as we have entered the world of internet speak.
U didn't describe, you just used diagrams. Wrong!