final exam ridiculous

So I doubt this will change anything but it still should be pointed out that thi
s final was generally ridiculous and set us up for failure. I don't understand h
ow we were supposed to study for something when we had no prior tests and were c
onstantly refused any sort of practice questions when we asked. Also why make th
e test have a proctor at all, the on campus one is a take home with open interne
t, and is available from the beginning of the term. It is pretty unnecessary to
memorize all the content when literally all web development is freely open on th
e internet. I also felt like the test was not representative of what we learned
in this class, it felt like it dealt with the trivial aspects that we read about
but did not actually need to implement in the classes assignments. I had over 1
00 percent in this class with everything getting perfect scores with no comments
. Clearly there is something wrong with the grading because I guess I didn't und
erstand the material and should have gotten comments on how to fix my mistakes.
Or maybe the test system was messed up and the entire class led us to an expecta
tion that is not held up within the test.
tldr I am upset that the test is so heavily weighted and so poorly executed. It
should be fixed for next class because of how disorganized the material was, and
emphasize the stuff we need to know for the final if there is going to a procto
red final to begin with.
Update: looking at the mean of 63% on the final I am not alone in this.
exam
editgood question16Updated 8 hours ago by RiverHendriksen
the students' answer,where students collectively construct a single answer
File suggestions into your student evaluation form. If you doubt the influence o
f the SET, email the professor personally (Sheela Surisetty - surisets@onid.oreg
onstate.edu) or the new director of the online CS program (Mike Bailey - mjb@cs.
oregonstate.edu). Many students found the exam unreasonable, although several su
cceeded.
Additionally, some of the followups degenerated into uncalled-for personal attac
ks. Let's not do that.
editthanks!4Updated 1 hour ago by Daniel Edades and 3 others
the instructors' answer,where instructors collectively construct a single answer
Almost 50% of the class got an A or A- ie. >=90%. If the final exam was really t
ough and the material was disorganized how could half of the class get an A or A
-?
If the final exam is tough for a few students I can't help with that. You didn't
have a midterm and you should expect the final to be tough since it is comprehe
nsive. If you did all your assignments and understand the concepts better then y
ou wouldn't have any problem acing the exam or even the course.
If I do a curve rather than absolute grading, your grade would be much lesser.
undo thanks8Updated 1 hour ago by Sheela Surisetty
followup discussionsfor lingering questions and comments
Resolved Unresolved
egertonl@onid.oregonstate.edu
egertonl@onid.oregonstate.edu 6 hours ago I would like to know when the question
s will be unlocked so we can see what we got wrong. I did significantly worse th
an I honestly expected.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 6 hours ago From what I gathered from the announcement they made
when releasing the scores is that you have to contact a TA via webex tomorrow o
therwise you won't get to see what you did wrong. Kinda adding to the point that
this test doesn't benefit most people since not everyone has time to contact th
e TA and therefore can't learn what they did wrong to fix the issues in the futu
re.
Anonymous

Anonymous 6 hours ago Wouldn't it be nice to have a conference with our actual i
nstructor? In a perfect world...
Daniel Edades
Daniel Edades 5 hours ago Is it mentioned anywhere which TA in particular we oug
ht to see based on name or something? I've looked through the announcements, etc
., but couldn't find that.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 3 hours ago I think it's all general. Just shotgun it.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Shuang Carol Jin
Shuang Carol Jin 6 hours ago
I second that the final exam focused too much on trivial details. The meaningles
sness of some questions was unexpected. E.g. www.stackoverflow.com/search? or ww
w.stackoverflow.com/search, etc.
Of all the classes I've taken so far, this one has been unusually challenging not because the class material was 10 times harder, but the disorganization plus
the the low level of clarity of the class material. Honestly, pretty much anyth
ing else found on the internet was easier to understand than the lectures.
Then the amount of practice we got from the class was far less than we should be
getting. The database assignment shouldn't feel that difficult, if we were to h
ave more practice. Some may argue that we can always study on our own and do mor
e practice at our own pace. But that's not the point since we're talking about h
ow the class wasn't designed well.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 6 hours ago
I agree with all of you guys. The exam was the worst thing I have ever done. My
grade was 99% and it went down to 79%. Look at how ridiculous that looks. Its fu
nny to me actually. They probably graded it in the most shittiest way. Sorry abo
ut the language but this is pretty stupid.
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago Unless you received a ~20% on the final, you aren't being
truthful. And if you received a 20% on the final, frankly, you shouldn't pass th
e class.
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago Here, here!
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 6 hours ago
Agree. I had close to 100 going in, studied a ton, felt I had good understanding
of the material, even felt I was doing well on the exam while I was taking it,
only to wake up this morning to see I bombed it. This is the worst grade I've ev
er gotten on any college test, probably by 10 or more points.
egertonl@onid.oregonstate.edu
egertonl@onid.oregonstate.edu 6 hours ago Ditto.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 6 hours ago
There should be a 100% curve on this.
Nick Mabe
Nick Mabe 4 hours ago I agree with the sentiment about the amount of time and ef
fort for the final project and it's value vs the final.

@sheela surisetty
I had above a 100 with respect to demonstrated capability prior to the final. I
dropped a letter grade based on a failure to regurgitate course material. I thin
k that the weight of the final, as an evaluation, is fairly skewed in the wrong
direction when considering relevant skill and knowledge gained.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Joseph DePrey
Joseph DePrey 6 hours ago
I'm curious how the duplicate questions were graded. If we answered a repeated q
uestion incorrectly twice did that count as two incorrect answers?
Also, even though it was a gimme question, we were explicitly told there would b
e no Week 10 content on the final, and then there was a question about SQL secur
ity.
A mean score of 63 indicates that either the exam was poorly designed or all of
us are just not cut out for this. I suspect the former. Maybe our time would ha
ve been better spent studying instead of allocating 40 hours to complete a final
assignment worth only 1%.
Daniel Edades
Daniel Edades 5 hours ago I think the SQL security question was covered in Week
9 during the discussion of the ? operator in SQL queries. Maybe we're thinking o
f different questions.
Anonymous
Anonymous 5 hours ago Ah you're probably right. Still an odd question.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 5 hours ago yeah it was :-/
from week 9:
"You might think the way to handle queries would be to build a query string manu
ally and pass that into the query function. Do not do this. I cannot emphasize h
ow important it is that you never build strings from user supplied data. A large
percentage of the security issues on the Internet come from lazy programmers wh
o do exactly this. In short, it lets the user build whatever query they want by
injecting SQL code into your query. They can delete your data or view passwords
by injecting SQL commands.
By using the ? the mysql library knows that it is a value and not a command to e
xecute. So it will not run commands supplied via question marks. This also means
that you cannot use ?s to replace things like the operation or the table name b
ecause these are not values but actual tokens in MySQL
So, we have this incredibly important ?, then we have an array of values which w
ill be used to replace question marks. In this case there is only one ? so our a
rray only has on value. We pull it from the query string parameter called c. I n
amed it that to stand for content. You could name it something else. Doesn't mat
ter."
It isn't super obvious what it is for though, they also talked about in the vide
o but those things were god awful.
Daniel Edades
Daniel Edades 5 hours ago (Oh, welp. Didn't see the actual Security lecture for
this week before posting this.)
Anonymous
Anonymous 5 hours ago It was pretty obvious Wolford wrote that one.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 3 hours ago "Um, actually, SQL injections were used by the HUNS, not
Mongolians"

Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago @Steven, I chose that answer just cause...that is the righ
t answer right?
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 5 hours ago I agree, this test was so difficult and I've taken tests f
or much harder courses that weren't as difficult. I had 102% going in and now I'
m at 85%--68/100, which is also the worst I've ever done at a final. I felt like
I did okay too! For my analysis of algorithms (an extremely more difficult clas
s) I was even able to pull off an 80% on the final. I feel horrible that I did b
etter on that test than this class considering web development is something I'd
like to do for a living. I was so looking forward to taking this class and I'm j
ust so disappointed with the end result.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 5 hours ago Yeah same! I personally have built and currently run
a client side php/html/css website with a python server using apache for self i
nterest. I felt like I understood web services and databases but this final just
felt like a punch to the stomach. I think if enough of us are having serious pr
oblems with this then we need to address this either to the instructor or the ee
cs department.
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago Unless you scored a 34 on the final, the drop in overall g
rade you described (102% to 85%) is mathematically impossible.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 2 hours ago But did you show your work, Anon?
Anonymous
Anonymous 1 hour ago I didn't do one of the assignments (due to other circumstan
ces that were my fault so yes I understand that part of the grade drop is entire
ly on me) so yes, my grade did drop that low. The bigger point was the 68/100 on
the final which was surprising to me as I thought I ended up doing okay. It was
just a disappointing result to say the least.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 1 hour ago Yeah, was it the how-to? I had a lot of trouble with the
later assignments too. In my opinion it would be nice for the assignments to jus
t be open from the beginning in the future as they are in some on-campus classes
like the gen chem sequence. The online CS program is all about schedule flexibi
lity so this is concurrent with that ethos.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Christopher Carrassi
Christopher Carrassi 5 hours ago
Just a couple points:
-- Instructors can apparently still see you if anonymous.
-- Provide feedback in the evaluations and not just here.
I too had a 102% going into the class only to get a 66 on the final. And this wa
sn't exactly my first rodeo with web development. Go figure.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 4 hours ago Agreed, I kinda just made this post to hopefully sho
w that this was more than a singular issue and something that a lot of the class
was facing. Also to hopefully get something changed either for this class/ the
future classes. If the mean of the class was 63% that would be fine if we consid
er 63% acceptable at OSU (in general). However based on our grading rubric 63% i
s barely higher than a D- and that just isn't acceptable for the average outside
of a physics class.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 4 hours ago Students may want to write Mike Bailey (mjb@cs.oregonsta

te.edu), the director of the program also, since student evaluations are popular
ly scorned and are widely disregarded across the United States. Feel free to wri
te him if you have something positive to say about the class also - most of thes
e professors could use some good words. Maybe mention the TAs who seem to be wor
king tirelessly at the rather lenient late policy (thank you Jun He).
BTW, low averages aren't really acceptable in a physics class either. The only r
eason it happens is because "physics classes" are usually introductory and don't
require more than Cs in diff/int calc, which aren't really competitive grades.
I am saying this as someone who did horribly badly in my electromagnetism exams,
haha.
Anonymous
Anonymous 4 hours ago You're also not feedback in your evaluations, so it doesn'
t matter too much if you decide to post here "anonymously" or not. If you submit
evaluations as anonymous then only the instructor sees it (without your name) a
nd it doesnt get passed up to the admins.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 4 hours ago haha yeah that is true for physics, it's just their
grading rubric is different (and lower) then this one. And I have nothing agains
t the TA's or the Instructor honestly at all, it is just the class didn't seem p
roperly prepare us for the test. I think this was just unforeseen to them, rathe
r than being angry at them I am just frustrated that this is impacting my grade
so much when it didn't seem to get that much precedence.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 4 hours ago Actually I have heard that the test is 100% identical to
last term's, down to the accidentally duplicated questions and Mongolian scare
tactics, and the grade weighting is the same as well, so any problem that occurr
ed this term should have happened last term also.
On the topic of physics, you guys should give physical chemistry or dynamics at
OSU a shot, it's a real laugh riot.
Joseph DePrey
Joseph DePrey 4 hours ago I don't think a single thing was modified or updated s
ince the previous term.
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago This is usually true of on-campus courses too, why should
the on-line format be any different?
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Rob Navarro
Rob Navarro 4 hours ago
I am going to have to agree with everyone else and say that this was a poorly ex
ecuted final. The part that gets me the most is that the last 3 questions were w
orth over half of the overall grade. I have talked with people that have previou
sly taken this class, and it seems that in the past those questions would have i
nvolved us writing code instead of trying to pick multiple choice answers. If yo
u write the code out you at least have a chance at partial credit, but in this c
ase if you don't pick the right multiple choice option you lose all of the point
s.
Daniel Edades
Daniel Edades 4 hours ago I think one of them only allowed you to pick one, the
others required you to choose all the statements that should have gone into the
code, so that at least theoretically permits partial credit.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 4 hours ago The instructor said in a previous Piazza question (I
don't remember which) that they gave partial credit for the multiple choice but
who knows how they divvied it up, plus those kinds of questions are super misle
ading.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 4 hours ago I've had this problem in classes before also. If those l

ast three questions were the majority of the final exam's score, then it suggest
s that each question is worth around 4% of your grade. Thus the difference betwe
en a 4.0 student and a 2.7 student is literally 3 questions (or maybe less if yo
u consider partial credit).
Joseph DePrey
Joseph DePrey 4 hours ago Yet the 40-50 hour databases & UI assignment was only
worth 1%.
Shuang Carol Jin
Shuang Carol Jin 3 hours ago I totally agree the 49-51 is purely ridiculous.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 3 hours ago Actually I think the database assignment was about 8.3%,
approximately 2 of those free responses.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Zachary DeVita
Zachary DeVita 4 hours ago
I concur. The test seemed like just a bunch of confusing code. I am not a compil
er, but I did spend a week answering the questions at the beginning of each sect
ion and studying the reading in the chapters. I think you were the most correct,
though, when you mentioned that you don't know if this matters, it doesn't.
Anonymous
Anonymous 4 hours ago JavaScript is an interpreted language, so there's that.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 4 hours ago
Sorry to have to disagree with everyone (and I'll stay anon so that I don't get
tarred and feathered), but I really appreciated the fact that the test had lots
of questions covering fundamental understanding of web development versus your a
bility to memorize facts and syntax.
I really make an effort to understand conceptually what a function or code snipp
et is doing and why. I think that pre-tests, practice tests, etc, just lead to
a lot of people memorizing surface level information that can be recited on a te
st. This is the type of information that is forgotten in 3 months. If you want
to get no value from the classes, keep on learning this way. Otherwise, when y
ou're learning a new concept, push until you really get it, i.e. until you can e
xplain to someone 'why' it works this way, not just that it does.

Joseph DePrey
Joseph DePrey 4 hours ago Did it really though? Majority of points came from hi
ghly syntactic questions.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 4 hours ago I don't think you are wrong at all, I agree there do
esn't really need to be a pretest for this final. However I believe there should
have been tests prior to this that gave us a feel of how the questions would be
asked, and by the time we had our final we could have seen our scores and the a
nswers to the prior tests to see what they wanted out of us.
As for the "why," I don't think this really applied to this class. The why was a
lways, "don't worry about it, we aren't going to bother covering it." I agree th
at the fundamentals of programming are incredibly important and the most importa
nt part of learning computer science. The fact is this test did not do this, pro
gramming fundamentals are not asking us about CSS-selectors which are only impor
tant when you need them (hence look them up online), or what the correct syntax
of a url is, or what does this function do. I get the self-push to learn all tha
t you can and learn at your own initiative is important, but a lot of code was h
anded to us and we were supposed to take it without question.

Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago True Joseph, there were definitely some of those mixed in.
So, good points.
Daniel Edades
Daniel Edades 3 hours ago While you have every right to remain anonymous, I will
say that anyone who did more than disagreeing with you on this board would be c
rossing a line that should not be crossed.
Emma Yaffe
Emma Yaffe 3 hours ago My problem was not the types of questions per se, but the
fact that we had no prior tests, quizzes, or practice material to help guide ou
r studying. Professors have different styles when it comes to creating test ques
tions. The fact that we had to go into this completely blind as to what to expec
t was difficult. They were not the sorts of questions I thought to study...but I
would have if we had been given a modicum of guidance. There was a ton of mater
ial covered in this class, and the questions could have taken all different form
s. You could spend hours studying and if you're just not studying the right thin
gs it won't help. It definitely feels like they were not in any way trying to he
lp us succeed.
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago I agree with Anonymous regarding the questions covering co
de and topical issues like closures and choosing between a POST or GET request.
I think these issues were raised and highlighted in the materials.
For the questions covering language niceties, I felt the professor's "Final Exam
Information" announcement (05/18/2016) adequately alluded to them, especially t
he hint that questions would "be based on the key questions in the modules." I t
hink some may have glossed it over while preparing their notes and for this exam
. I almost did. It may have been more helpful if that announcement had been post
ed/duplicated on Piazza.
Zachary DeVita
Zachary DeVita 3 hours ago You're not anonymous to me. I can tell who this is ju
st based on the context of the message. Just one question... how does it taste?
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago @Emma: In my opinion the job of the instructor is not to
help you get a great grade in the class. It's to help you learn computer scienc
e. If you get told what will be on a test, then you'll only study what will be
on the test.
Not trying to offend anyone, but if you got a 65 on this test, then you are clea
rly lacking in your understanding of web dev. I agree with the poster who said
that this test wasn't that hard. Having an instructor who gave you the question
s in advance (or extremely similar questions so that you knew exactly what to me
morize) is just going to cover up the fact that you aren't deeply understanding
the concepts. I think if you fall in this camp you should really reassess how y
ou are learning because you'll get more benefit for your money and end up a bett
er engineer if you change your tactics.
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago
I can tell who this is just based on the context of the message. Just one questi
on... how does it taste?
@Zachary: I don't believe you. I'd love to hear how the "context" of the messa
ge informed you who I am. RE: How it tastes... given that this is an obviously
insulting and inappropriate comment for the public class discussion boards, it'
d be awesome if they'd just do you a favor and kick you out of this program so y
ou don't waste more of your time and money. I don't think computer science is f
or you "bro".
Anonymous
Anonymous 1 hour ago Agreed. That was pretty vile and abusive. Reasonably confid
ent that there is a zero tolerance policy for harassment on the forums.
Reply to this followup discussion

Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago
I'm also going to have to disagree with most everyone here. I didn't feel the fi
nal was all that bad. I had no previous web experience aside from a little HTML
and CSS. I work full-time, have a child and family, went on a week long cruise d
uring the week of the databases assignment, did not study for the final, nor did
I have a notes sheet. I didn't feel there were any surprising questions, some o
f them may have been over topics we glanced over in the course, or could've been
worded better, but I never felt any of the questions were over something we did
not cover in the course. The ones I knew I didn't know I still remembered them
being covered in the material, I just didn't remember the specific answer.
I do, however, agree that the final's weighting in the overall grade shouldn't b
e so high, but we can argue this about almost any other class. I do also agree t
hat previous quizzes/tests, or review material would've been nice, but let's be
honest here, do you really expect the companies you interview at to provide you
with some review material and/or practice quizzes so that you can get a feel for
their questions? Ask the next recruiter you talk to about a position, see how w
ell that goes for you.
I feel the bottom line is, and the purpose of finals/midterms/tests/quizzes is t
o check this, if you took the time to half-way understand the material while you
did the project, i.e. thinking about what has to happen next, and how to do it,
you should've done well enough on the exam. If you took the given code at face
value and just massaged it to show your table/text/etc. then the blame for your
less than stellar performance on the final is on you. Could the lectures have be
en better? Yes. Could the course have been designed better? Yes. But what class
would this, and all other points brought up, not hold true?
I guess, in short, what I'm saying is, this class and the material wasn't really
all that difficult, and actually probably one of the easier I've taken. A lot o
f material? Yes, but that's just the nature of web development. They could've sp
lit the course up and covered front-end and back-end separately in more depth, b
ut this is an Intro class. This would also lengthen the program, your time to en
ter the workforce, and if you aren't interested in web, it's a waste of your tim
e.
I don't disagree with every point brought up, but I do think that most of the po
ints brought up could be said about almost every course I've taken in this progr
am, and with my previous degree. I just think we also have to own up for ourselv
es and admit that maybe you didn't study the right things, or you didn't study l
ong enough, or you didn't take the time you should have during the semester to u
nderstand the material. Does the instructor own some of the fault too? Of course
. Does the course designer? Yep. But to be honest, and NOT disrespectful, some o
f the fault is on you...and me too! Yes, I should've studied if I wanted a highe
r grade on the final, but I didn't. You probably should've studied more, or bett
er.
Either way, it's over now, and if it is really that heartbreaking to you, just b
ring it up through the right channels. Everyone commiserating on here produces n
othing, and most likely will not help your case with instructor. So man/woman up
, admit your mistakes, and accept the consequences of your own actions and choic
es.
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago This.
Konstantin Yakovenko
Konstantin Yakovenko 3 hours ago I think that the confluence of problems is the
problem here. Yeah, every course will have problems, some courses will place too
much weight into the final, some courses will not give you an idea of what the

testing will be like, some will lull you into thinking that assignments are repr
esentative of the testing... This one just pooled together a bunch of those prob
lems together...
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago And so will your interviews in this industry. Your intervi
ew will be heavily weighted on the technical questions, which you won't get an i
dea of what they're like, and you will most likely be lulled into thinking that
what you learned during the course of getting the degree alone will be represent
ative of what the companies will be testing you on.
Just like this course, you'll have to do some guessing, and learning, on your ow
n as to what to prepare for in order to perform your best.
Shuang Carol Jin
Shuang Carol Jin 2 hours ago I don't think interviews are comparable to exams. T
he key difference is the latter is part of a paid learning experience, but the f
ormer isn't. In a paid learning experience, you expect to learn things and recei
ve *fair* evaluation on your learning. In an interview, companies are choosing w
ho they are paying salaries to in the future. The dynamic is completely differen
t.
Konstantin Yakovenko
Konstantin Yakovenko 2 hours ago You want it to be more representative of the re
al world? Great, that would be awesome, make the whole course more representativ
e. Harder, more vague assignments where you HAVE TO do your own research, bring
it on. That would be great preparation. But I think it is unreasonable to make t
he course give you one impression, then withhold information about the final, an
d have the final aiming at a completely different impression.
Interviewing is a series of tests. You screw up on one, you learn for your next
one. Practice. Here, there is no practice. Just one interview.
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago Information wasn't withheld, we were told what to review.
Which question was not covered in the material? And an intro course is not suppo
sed to be representative of the real world. To be honest, if you want to go into
web development, you're going to need to know more than what's in this intro co
urse, no matter how well it was taught, or how well you did in it.
I still don't think there was anything necessarily "unfair" about this exam. The
course, exam included, could've been better overall, what course couldn't? Anyt
hing could be improved, hell Google can do things better!
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago Agree with the above. I'm not an engineer, but our head o
f engineering complains constantly about interviewing junior devs fresh out of s
chool who have no ability to answer basic conceptual questions. The instructors
who set you up to be able to memorize how to handle specific questions and then
send you on with an 'A' when you don't deeply understand the concepts are the o
nes who are doing you a disservice.
Alan Seims
Alan Seims 2 hours ago This class wasn't packaged as an 'Intro' class. That is m
y main gripe with this course. An intro class touches on the subject and doesn't
go into great detail about the material being covered. That is exactly what thi
s class did, and poorly at that. It should be called an 'Intro' class. This clas
s tries to cover too much material. I think that this could be a great class if
the material was restructured and organized better. This is one of the classes I
was looking forward to taking and it turned out to be the one that I like the l
east so far. I honestly feel like this class is a blemish on the program.
Shuang Carol Jin
Shuang Carol Jin 2 hours ago The fact that Google can do things better should no
t prevent us from wanting/demanding it to be improved. I can't speak for everyon

e, but I pay the tuition to receive quality education from the school. I do expe
ct the class material to be more readable and organized so I can learn effective
ly.
Konstantin Yakovenko
Konstantin Yakovenko 1 hour ago -Anonymous: was the depth of the questions that
would be on the final covered somewhere? How about the structure of questions? T
hat is the information that I didn't see and feel was withheld.That is the infor
mation that you get by answering questions that the professor wrote, by doing pr
actice tests. Course information was there, but filtering what information was c
onsidered important and what wasn't couldn't really be done because of no practi
ce questions.
-Also, I can't distinguish between all of you "Anonymouses" but if: " And an int
ro course is not supposed to be representative of the real world" why are we com
paring the final to an interview?
-Anything could be better, yes. And instead of just dismissing it by saying "Any
thing could be better.." I am trying bring it to attention so that it would be m
ade better.
Anonymous
Anonymous 1 hour ago @Alan - the fact that this is the first, and only, web deve
lopment course in the program should make it fairly obvious that this is an intr
o class. Do you think that the architecture and assembly class taught us everyth
ing we need to know to go into firmware? That wasn't labeled an intro class eith
er, but just because it doesn't say intro doesn't mean it wasn't. The class trie
s to cover a little of front-end and back-end development, which is inherently a
lot of material, there's no getting around that. But like it was said, splittin
g it into two courses would waste the time of those not interested in web develo
pment, and extend the program.
@Shuang & Kanstantin - you both make valid points, and I agree with some of what
you said. No, the depth of the questions weren't covered, nor the structure; ho
wever, the depth of the questions on all the finals that I've taken weren't nece
ssarily covered. Previous quizzes/tests would've helped with the structure, true
, but that was the decision made by the powers that be. A quality education is s
omething, I hope, we're all interested in receiving, but one class doesn't make
or break that, I'm sure there's classes that need improving at MIT, but does tha
t mean those graduates aren't getting a quality education? By saying "Anything c
ould be better..." I wasn't saying you shouldn't be bringing things to attention
, that's how things do get better, I was trying to say that to crucify this part
icular course for it's design and presentation isn't the way to go about improvi
ng it. Not you necessarily, but in general, these points should be brought up in
a civilized, and professional, manner to those, and through the channels, that
matter.
This post has brought some good discussion, and I think some of it has been heal
thy, but I think the overall tone needs to calm down and take a deep breath. I'm
not trying to say that you nay sayers are wrong, I'm just bringing up some coun
ter points that maybe would spark some more thought on some of those with uglier
tones. I think the points brought up are, for the most part, valid and deserve
more discussion with those who can do something about it. I don't think we need
to be getting aggressive toward each other, or the instructor, because that will
only lead to everyone getting on the defensive and nothing worthwhile coming of
it. We all are students after all, so we don't agree, I don't agree with my wif
e all the time either, but that doesn't mean that I attack her with insults and
escalate it with nasty comments.
I do think, as an aside, that we do need to consider that this course is still f
airly "new", in that it was redesigned not that long ago and will consequently h
ave some kinks to work out. But the fact that it was redesigned at all shows tha

t they do take the feedback seriously, if it's done the right way. I also ventur
e to bet that with as bad as the previous course was supposed to be, some of the
previous graduates did still manage to land web development positions.
Alan Seims
Alan Seims 47 minutes ago Sorry, I have to disagree with you. The classes you me
ntioned go into great detail about one subject. Sure, they don't cover everythin
g, but not many classes can fit decades worth of technology into an eleven week
course. I think some of the comments went a bit too far, but at the root some pe
ople may feel cheated. We spent nearly $2000 for this class and I would bet that
a lot of people don't think that was money well spent.
Anonymous
Anonymous 40 minutes ago There are several courses that do not go into great det
ail about one subject, Databases does a particularly bad job, even though it is
over one subject, just my opinion. Also, there are several courses that will cov
er more than one subject coming up, i.e. Software engineering I & II, Cloud and
Mobile, Networks is a huge topic, not to mention some of the future elective cou
rses that they plan on releasing. I feel like this is pretty common across many
universities, on-line and off-line, and even majors.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago
The last three questions were worth 17 points each if I recall correctly and the
correct answers were obvious. Without filling in a single other answer on the r
emaining 49? questions, you should have been able to get above 50% if you unders
tand the material. And the class average was still 63%??? And then you post on P
iazza about how unfair it was...I'm embarrassed to call you all classmates. It r
eally was not that bad of test, you just didn't understand all the material or d
o poorly in a testing environment.
Anonymous
Anonymous 3 hours ago +1!!!!!
Emma Yaffe
Emma Yaffe 2 hours ago Hey, here's a thought: you can do well on the test and st
ill disagree with how it was executed. Or you can go on piazza and insult your c
lassmates while hiding behind an anonymous tag. "I'm embarrassed to call you all
classmates"...a little uncalled for. Let's try to keep it civil.
David Itzkowitz
David Itzkowitz 2 hours ago +1 Emma.
A 63% average can imply that we as a class are embarrassing - or that the exam w
as terrible. I'm inclined to believe in the latter.
Shuang Carol Jin
Shuang Carol Jin 2 hours ago +1 Emma too. I did fine in the test and I disagree
with how it was executed + how the entire class teaching was executed. "I'm emb
arrassed to call you all classmates." - That kind of comment doesn't make you a
saint, but a rat.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 2 hours ago Oh no, we embarrassed Anonymous. Hopefully he will not l
ose face.
Christopher Carrassi
Christopher Carrassi 2 hours ago To be clear, I agree that this is not the venue
for people to air their grievances. And I take full responsibility for my poor
performance, even if I thought the exam didn't exactly give me an opportunity to
show what I know. But anonymously insulting your classmates is equally unprofes
sional. If anyone should be embarrassed it's OP.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 2 hours ago I can't tel if you are talking about me or the the a
non. But if that was meant for me I wanted this post not to be an airing of grie
vances and more a discussion of/if there needs to be a change in the format of t
he test for future classes. I wanted to see if people would also be interested i

n this and potentially forming a group to discuss this with the instructor or wh
omever. I've resigned to my grade, but am hoping others in the future don't have
to face the same issues we had by changing the format of the class. Because it
seems based on previous posts it has not.
Christopher Carrassi
Christopher Carrassi 2 hours ago Sorry I meant anon. But in truth I do not think
this is the best venue for anyone to be criticizing the exam to the extent that
it has been.
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago yeah I agree, I kind of wish I could remove the post at th
is point.
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 2 hours ago I don't know why that was anon
Tanner England
Tanner England 2 hours ago Original poster here - The average final scores in my
Organic Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Stoichiometry classes were close to 6
0%. Those tests were beyond difficult and unfair, attributable to the pure volum
e of material covered in addition to how complex the concepts were. This test wa
s a cakewalk in comparison yet we have comments like:
"I don't understand how we were supposed to study for something when we had no p
rior tests and were constantly refused any sort of practice questions when we as
ked."
"Also why make the test have a proctor at all, the on campus one is a take home
with open internet, and is available from the beginning of the term. It is prett
y unnecessary to memorize all the content when literally all web development is
freely open on the internet."
"The meaninglessness of some questions was unexpected. E.g. www.stackoverflow.co
m/search? or www.stackoverflow.com/search, etc." (beyond easy to answer)
"The exam was the worst thing I have ever done. My grade was 99% and it went dow
n to 79%. Look at how ridiculous that looks. Its funny to me actually. They prob
ably graded it in the most shittiest way."
"I agree, this test was so difficult and I've taken tests for much harder course
s that weren't as difficult. I had 102% going in and now I'm at 85%--68/100, whi
ch is also the worst I've ever done at a final."
"There should be a 100% curve on this."
"The test seemed like just a bunch of confusing code. I am not a compiler..." (u
hh you need to understand why and where code is breaking)
The 'embarrassed to call you all classmates' was directed at those who did poorl
y and are whining about how unfair the exam was in an unconstructive manner. But
I'm glad everyone was so offended by my comment!
RiverHendriksen
RiverHendriksen 2 hours ago whether not the people are whining, saying you are "
embarrassed to call you classmates," on anon is offensive and rude. I feel like
you know that.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 2 hours ago Hey Tanner, if it was directed at those who did poorly a
nd are whining about how unfair the exam was, why did you qualify your statement
with, "all?" Or are you just claiming responsibility for this post for some ins
ane reason?
Christopher Carrassi
Christopher Carrassi 2 hours ago Why in the world would you be glad to offend pe
ople? I'm glad you did well on the exam, Tanner. Clearly you are very bright, or
work very hard. But I hope to never work with you or anyone with your attitude.
Tanner England
Tanner England 2 hours ago @RiverHendriksen As it should be if you failed the fi
nal and then tried to rally the entire class against the instructor / exam forma
tting due in large part to your own shortcomings. Was the format and content of
the exam up to the standards I have for state university? Probably not. Should/c

ould you have received an A if you thoroughly understand all the material we cov
ered? Absolutely. But many of the comments on here make us sound like sleep-depr
ived children. And I didn't get an A on the final if that makes you feel any bet
ter.
@Steven Hunt perhaps you should review the context of my statement. "And then yo
u post on Piazza about how unfair it was...I'm embarrassed to call you all class
mates." It was directed at 'all' those complaining about how unfair the exam was
despite the fact that a 50% was easily obtainable by answering only 3 questions
directly relating to our coursework.
@Christopher Carrassi - get off your high horse, it's called sarcasm
Christopher Carrassi
Christopher Carrassi 2 hours ago Thanks for confirming my conviction. Best of lu
ck to you, Tanner.
Reply to this followup discussion
Resolved Unresolved
Elizabeth Coenen
Elizabeth Coenen 2 hours ago
In many other college classes, when the mean exam grade is that low, the instruc
tor curves the scores a bit. Maybe the instructor for this class would consider
adding a small curve to the final exam grade?
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 hours ago You should try emailing the instructor about this. I have
a feeling they won't respond to this thread considering how upset people seem to
be, which is probably for the best.
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 2 hours ago The common thing to do at OSU is just to redefine the fi
nal grade cutoffs. For example an 80% was an A in physical chemistry when I took
it. I think the people who actually scored well on this exam deserve to be rewa
rded for that in some way though so I can't comment on whether we should actuall
y use that system, since they're probably way above 80%. The small curve as you
say may be more reasonable.
Reply to this followup discussion
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Joseph Fuerst
Joseph Fuerst 1 hour ago
So I didn't do all that well on the final either, certainly not as good as I exp
ected to do. But personally I don't think it's worth much worry. A lot of the co
ntent of the final was a single google search or error statement away from under
standing. I think I know a what a lot of you studied, because it's probably the
same stuff I studied. Rest easy knowing that, so long as we studied and learned
during the class, we all should have a pretty cool beginners understanding of we
b development. Certainly enough that we can now make our own websites and learn
more as we go.
Yea, the final sucked if you didn't study correctly. If you did well in the clas
s though, most of us shouldn't be suffering at this point. Just make your critic
isms where someone who matters will hear you and carry on.
Web development is a hell of a lot bigger than what we saw on that exam. And I c
an almost guarantee that most of us can in fact do everything we learned in this
class outside of a closed-everything exam format. If you're discouraged, I say
just keep working at it, prove to yourself that your web development skills are
better than a 63%!
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 1 hour ago Even better, put it together in a nice portfolio to show
that they're better than 63%.
Joseph Fuerst
Joseph Fuerst 1 hour ago That's the right idea! :)

Reply to this followup discussion

Resolved Unresolved
Anonymous
Anonymous 1 hour ago To answer the instructor regarding 50 percent of a class go
t an A or A-, fist of all no waaaaay that's a total lie! Second of all eve of th
ey did the material was very disorganized and we used something called YouTube!
Christopher Carrassi
Christopher Carrassi 1 hour ago This is equally unacceptable. There is no reason
to call the professor a liar, and it's pretty foolish to do so when she can ver
y easily prove what she's saying. We need to get a grip here people.
Anonymous
Anonymous 1 hour ago The assignments, though time-consuming and sometimes frustr
ating, were easy enough that getting all the points on most of them isn't a huge
task. I don't think it's hard to believe that >40% of the class could have gott
en all the points available. That's about what you'd need to still have over 90%
with a 63% on the final.
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Kyle Guthrie
Kyle Guthrie 1 hour ago
A data point I was curious about, maybe others will find it useful. If you got t
he mean score on everything in this course, your final score in the course would
be an 84%.
Anonymous
Anonymous 1 hour ago Interesting!
Steven Hunt
Steven Hunt 47 minutes ago Correct, assuming all information on Canvas is exact
then the mean overall score is 84.16667%. Also, by my calculation, the mean scor
e before the final was 91.1556%. This suggests that the mean final exam score wa
s about 30% lower than the mean student's overall grade prior, a difference of 3
.0 grade points.
Reply to this followup discussion
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David Moon
David Moon 55 minutes ago
In the spirit of trying to be constructive about this, I think that most student
frustration is coming from a disconnect between the course content, and the final
s
exam itself. I think the fact that nearly 50% of students have an A or A- in t
he course, despite the final exam mean score of 63%, shows that many students di
d extremely well in the course and did terrible on the final. I don t necessarily t
hink that the exam needs to be easier, or curved, or anything like that, but I d
o feel like the material on which we were evaluated could have been a bit more c
lear.
Perhaps giving short quizzes at the end of each weekly module would give student
s a more tangible idea of their weaknesses, and give students a better feel for
the types of questions they will be asked on the final exam. Another idea may b
e to give an optional practice final with a small subset of the questions from t
he final question bank, or similar questions. Ultimately, I don t really understand
why the final exam content was not more clear to students prior to taking it.
In short, I feel that the bulk of the course content, (lectures, assignments, ac
tivities, etc.) was aimed at actual coding and practical application, and that d
id not prepare students well for the final exam. I think it prepared me very we
ll for the coding questions on the exam, and I doubt I missed any points for tho
se questions. If the only thing we, as students, have to base our studying on i
s the previous course content, I don t see how we could have adequately prepared for
the riddle-type multiple choice questions that, in my opinion, require a very d
eep understanding of an immensely vast array of topics. If that s the goal of this

course, I think a little more time should be devoted to teaching that throughout
the quarter, and explicitly outlining the areas in which a thorough understandi
ng is expected.
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Jonathan Nicolosi
Jonathan Nicolosi 42 minutes ago
If nearly 50% of the class got A- to A, then the other half of the class had to
have averaged somewhere between 30 and 40.
I'm sorry professor, but something is wrong with that.
Kyle Guthrie
Kyle Guthrie 41 minutes ago I believe she means approximately 50% of the class e
nded up with a final grade of an A or A-, not on the final exam itself.
Jonathan Nicolosi
Jonathan Nicolosi 12 minutes ago Oh, thank you. Wish I could delete my comment n
ow...
Reply to this followup discussion
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Courtney Foster
Courtney Foster 10 minutes ago
I finished the final thinking I did rather well. Then.... Not so much.
I'm not sure what happened (haven't seen the test yet, but that I am seeing the
same experience from so many others speaks volumes.
One side note to the folks suggesting our classes should be "real world", no. I
t shouldn't. This is preparation for that real world. We need to know the dist
inctions to be sure, but if our "training" were nothing more than "real world",
then... Why not cut out the middle man and just go hit the real world and save a
ll this money? I hope you guys can see how this makes no sense.
Anonymous
Anonymous 6 minutes ago "Why not cut out the middle man and just go hit the real
world and save all this money? I hope you guys can see how this makes no sense
."
Because real world companies are not experts at educating students, they are exp
erts at whatever they do in the real world. That's what schools are for... You
can't cut out the middle man because no real world company will hire you with z
ero skills.
Anonymous
Anonymous 2 minutes ago I don't think anyone is saying the courses should be "re
al world", I think they're saying that if you expect to be prepared for the real
world by this one course, you're mistaken. It's also a combination of internshi
ps, side projects, etc. that HELP you prepare for the real world. Then you are o
nly prepared to ENTER the real world, not necessarily thrive in it. The companie
s that hire new grads, in any industry, do actually do their training on their o
wn technologies and specialties, so it is actually those companies that are prep
aring you for the real world.