Negative Marking

Cool croc

Is it actually possible for a lecturer to take marks off you in an exam?

Nailz

I heard somewhere that a particular Economics lecturer does so, although this is obviously hear-say on my part. I, for one, hope not - not that I lack confidence in my own ability to do well in the exam, but the fact that business students would also have to contend with the 35% rule is nonsense and seems too harsh.

ZRelation

I've seen it alot in MCQs, especially in medicine. They usually make it pretty clear before the exam if there's negative marking.

QueenOfLeon

You'll more than likely be told if exams are. I've had negative marking and variations of it a lot in MCQs. The exact marking scheme was always given to us beforehand.

RolandIRL

None of my MCQs in first year had negative marking but i know some other courses had it. they were always told beforehand about it though. If you're unsure, email your lecturer and ask them.

Raging_Ninja

I had a lecturer who used negative marking for MCQs. A couple of people managed to get negative results, and were given 0 marks.

joeKel73

We had it for MCQs (engineering). For one test it was +1 for a correct answer, 0 for a non-attempt and -2 for an incorrect answer. Was pretty harsh!

Nailz

foto joe wrote: »

We had it for MCQs (engineering). For one test it was +1 for a correct answer, 0 for a non-attempt and -2 for an incorrect answer. Was pretty harsh!

That is fucking daft, pardon my bluntness but that is absolutely absurd.

Raging_Ninja

I can see the logic behind it though. You're building something using the wrong specs and it collapses, you are trying to diagnose somebody's illness and you end up killing them. For some things there can be absolutely zero margin for error.

Cool croc

I don't think its fair on the student to have negative marking. If you are making an honest attempt to answer the multiple choice question to the best of your ability I don't think you should receive a negative mark if you attempt is incorrect.

NewApproach

Most negative marking schemes I have come across still incentivise just taking a pure guess even if you dont have a clue (which is pretty rare). for example it might be +4 for a correct, -1 for incorrect and 0 for non attempt with 4 options to choose from.

Ficheall

Cool croc wrote: »

I don't think its fair on the student to have negative marking. If you are making an honest attempt to answer the multiple choice question to the best of your ability I don't think you should receive a negative mark if you attempt is incorrect.

"Honest to God, your Honour, I didn't realise I removed the wrong kidney. It seemed like there was a reasonable chance that I'd be right.."

Cool croc

Ficheall wrote: »

"Honest to God, your Honour, I didn't realise I removed the wrong kidney. It seemed like there was a reasonable chance that I'd be right.."

I'd prefer if you would just give a simple opinion, I didn't ask at the start of the thread for smart remarks.

Also your presumption that i'm a med student is wrong.

I just don't agree with a MCQ that gives you +1 for a correct answer, -1 for a wrong answer and 0 for not answering.

Ficheall

I'd prefer if people weren't so self-centered and short-sighted, but c'est la vie.

Apologies for the choice of example, though - I didn't assume you were a medical student. I just didn't think that "I'm sorry, Sir, but I just guessed you'd want fries with your burger.." would carry the same gravitas.

RolandIRL

Keep it civil, folks.

joeKel73

I'm actually pro-negative marking for MCQs.

Suppose the pass mark is 40%. If it's a 4 option MCQ, then on average people would get 25% by just blindly selecting answers.

Take a 25 question MCQ for example. To get 40% pass they would have to answer 10 correctly.

So suppose they know the answer of only 5 questions. If they randomly guessed the remaining questions then on average they would get 5/20 of them correct. So despite only knowing 20% of the answers, they get a 40% pass.

So I think -1/0/+1 negative marking is fair to avoid people just randomly guessing.