- Fail to write your lab section on your assignment. TAs don’t remember what lab section “Tuesday 8am-11am” refers to. It makes it just a little bit harder to enter in your grade and makes it just a little bit easier to deduct marks.
- Write really really small and messy, in hopes that the inability to read your writing will make your TA assume that your response is correct. This rarely works. He will get frustrated, not bother to read your answer and assume it is wrong. Typing your answers whenever possible is a good idea.
- Write your answers in non-sequential order. Don’t make me flip back and forth to find your answers scrawled on various sheets. It might not seem like a big deal, but when your marker is in the middle of a grueling five-hour marking session, the slightest annoyance could be problematic for your grade.
- Ramble on and on when you really don’t know how to answer the question at all. He’ll see right through it.
- Don’t actually answer the question at all and talk about something entirely different. Your TA has to follow the marking scheme. If it’s not in the marking scheme, you can’t get any marks for it.
But here’s how to make your TA really really happy.
- Coordinate with your fellow students to hand in your assignments sorted in alphabetical order by last name. You have no idea how happy this will make him.
I never write my tutorial number on assignments. I don’t think I have ever once known which tutorial number I’ve been. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a TA who has cared.
Did you really have a class alphabetize thier assignments?
hahaha… this is an excellent, but far from comprehensive list. How about staple the pages of your assignment together? Folding the corner just plain doesn’t work. Sometimes students get creative with this one though… I had an assignment held together by a hair tie last week
Emma: It probably just depends on how your classes are managed. For us, students hand in their assignments into different boxes, depending on their section. I mark the assignments for labs D and F, so if you don’t write your lab section, it makes a bit of a pain for me to figure out which pile you belong in when I go to enter in grades and give back the assignments to the lab TAs. Also, it says right on the assignment handout that you’ll lose marks if you don’t put your lab section, so they really really should have it there.
And no, unfortunately, no class has loved me enough to alphabetize their assignments for me.
Ben: Haha, no it certainly isn’t a comprehensive list. Your suggestion is definitely a good one that I forgot to include because I luckily didn’t get any students who forgot to staple their papers together this time around. A hair tie is ingenious - I’ve only ever had paperclips or corner folding.
stewart’s such a dork
ps: im sorry i missed such an exciting class of theory
really. i am
the huge grin you see is not a grin of happiness but one of much anguish and suffering.
really.
im so screwed for history it aint funny.
You forgot “Staple a $100 bill to your assignment” for things that will make the TA happy. It won’t help their grades, but hey at least you could get a little extra money out of it.
A hair tie? Whoa, now I know what to do if i run out of staples. Instead of tossing out the hair ties that stretch out too much and become useless, I should save them for this express purpose.
Note that I never suggested the hair tie actually worked…
hair tie is okay..i’ve used ribbons…and not for its asthetic appeal.
haha, this is hilarious. i’m thinking back to the assignments i’ve handed in…eeek.
I concur on your briefing. After about 3 hours of grading papers last year, my tolerance for weak formating or half-assed solutions totally plummeted.
ooh..I have another great story!! So when I can’t find a stapler…I go to a bullentin board that has staples in it already, and pull one out for my assignment. You just gotta poke through the two holes for the staple to go through first and voila!!! It’s done. Sometimes..I think I am too creative for my own good. Hehe.
Fran: Now that? Is pure genius. I’m gonna have to keep that tip in mind.
Desperate times call for desperate measures right?!
I love the students who complain about me and other TAs to the lab corrdinator that it’s unfair that they lost too many points for getting a certain answer wrong. We get grade keys, there are 25 sections of lab and we all follow the same grade key. If a question is worth 5 points, and they get it wrong, they lose 5 points, simple. Really, the students generally think that everything is up to the TAs.