Drake Law Faculty Bumbles Writing Exams, Will Students Suffer?

[Susan B. Anthony]

"Mistakes and errors happen. You deal with them"

(emphasis added)

Exactly as I was saying...

Right. Whatever.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

Look, I'm a realist and I understand that most people don't get ahead by playing on a level playing field.  Still, I find the faux moralistic pretenses about "personal responsibility" grating.  You're not fooling any one except, possibly, yourself.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Doesn't require any particular intellect to do what third graders know how to do. Doesn't require a saint, either; I wanted to make sure my intuition was correct, and I didnt feel like having the proctor interrupt me in a panic 2 hours in to the exam.

As I think more about this, I have less and less sympathy for someone in law school that doesn't realize there is something wrong with this picture.

[Susan B. Anthony]

It's not moralistic, it's pragmatic. *&^% like this happens. You can protect yourself at the time, and do what you can to mitigate damages, or you can not take sensible steps and then complain after about the vast injustice perpetrated against you and try to get someone to give you cookies and/or extra points on an exam.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

It's not moralistic, it's pragmatic. poo like this happens. You can protect yourself at the time, and do what you can to mitigate damages, or you can not take sensible steps and then complain after about the vast injustice perpetrated against you and try to get someone to give you cookies and/or extra points on an exam.

The only way your argument could be viewed as "pragmatic" is that it prevents the administration from having to deal with the situation.  Your argument places the burden on the students to make sure their tests are correctly and fairly administered.  That may decrease the burden on the institution, but it's also placing the responsibility on the shoulders of those least involved with the administrative process, those who know the least about the exam format (test-takers, by definition, do not see the exam before its administration, nor do they see the exams of other test-takers for comparison) and who have the least amount of time to deal with the situation.  That's counter-intuitive, at the very least. 

It's a pretty clear cut case of students being given exams with different and possibly distracting formats.  No one said it was a "vast injustice," but some said it was a mistake that caused some to be disadvantaged.  Some further argued that such mistakes should be corrected.  You argued that the mistakes were the responsibility of the students to find and correct because of your (no doubt universally applied, ) doctrine of personal responsibility. I think that's a bunch of crap.   

[ISUCKATTHIS]

Doesn't require any particular intellect to do what third graders know how to do. Doesn't require a saint, either; I wanted to make sure my intuition was correct, and I didnt feel like having the proctor interrupt me in a panic 2 hours in to the exam.

As I think more about this, I have less and less sympathy for someone in law school that doesn't realize there is something wrong with this picture.

I think you've demonstrated to within a hair's breadth of certainty that anything you can do "Doesn't require any particular intellect."

[gators191]

It's not moralistic, it's pragmatic. poo like this happens. You can protect yourself at the time, and do what you can to mitigate damages, or you can not take sensible steps and then complain after about the vast injustice perpetrated against you and try to get someone to give you cookies and/or extra points on an exam.

The only way your argument could be viewed as "pragmatic" is that it prevents the administration from having to deal with the situation.  Your argument places the burden on the students to make sure their tests are correctly and fairly administered.  That may decrease the burden on the institution, but it's also placing the responsibility on the shoulders of those least involved with the administrative process, those who know the least about the exam format (test-takers, by definition, do not see the exams before its administration, nor do they see those of other test-takers) and who have the least amount of time to deal with the situation.  That's counter-intuitive, at the very least. 

It's a pretty clear cut case of students being given exams with different and possibly distracting formats.  No one said it was a "vast injustice," but some said it was a mistake that caused some to be disadvantaged.  Some further argued that such mistakes should be corrected.  You argued that the mistakes were the responsibility of the students to find and correct because of your (no doubt universally applied, ) doctrine of personal responsibility. I think that's a bunch of crap.   

Agreed!!  

[gators191]

It's not moralistic, it's pragmatic. poo like this happens. You can protect yourself at the time, and do what you can to mitigate damages, or you can not take sensible steps and then complain after about the vast injustice perpetrated against you and try to get someone to give you cookies and/or extra points on an exam.

You are right and we call this a claim for negligence in the legal field.

[Susan B. Anthony]

I didn't say that the school shouldn't try to correct it. In fact, I said several times that the school should try to correct it. Nice attempt at mischaracterization, though. Or was it simply a failure to read what I actually said?

For the seventeenth time, yes, it is the school's fault. Yes, they should do what they can do to correct it. Yes, it never should have happened. That does not mean that the OP doesn't take totally unreasonable and bizarre position, and it does not mean that when you get an exam, you shouldn't look it over to make sure everything is there, because what is an easy fix at the beginning of the exam becomes, as we have seen, a decidedly less easy fix at the end or after the fact.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

There's a difference between lacking empathy and acknowledging that most things are not entirely fair. Also, you'll note that I mentioned that there may be ways to mitigate the damage, and if the school can come up with some way to do so, good for them.

At some point, people are going to have to start taking responsibility for themselves, rather than whining every time something happens that seems unfair.

(emphasis added)

I've heard that Ginko tablets improve memory.