This One Was My Fault

I had a student scheduled to take a make-up exam this morning. She showed up on time, I set her up in this little side room we have for students to take rescheduled exams in, and she took the exam. She finished pretty quickly, and I graded it as soon as she left. She did terrible. Like, F-minus. Really bad.

I go to record the grade in my gradebook when I realize that she was there for an intro phil exam and I had given her the intro ethics test. (I have another make-up exam scheduled this afternoon.) I gave her the wrong exam, and that's why she flunked. My bad. In my defense, I am responsible for nearly 200 students and I am barely capable of being organized.

So, obviously, I emailed her right away and apologized profusely, and asked when she could schedule a make-up for the make-up. Then I apologized some more.

But what I don't get is, why didn't she say anything? I mean, none of the questions would have looked the least bit familiar. There is literally no connection between the material on the test in front of her and the subject matter of her class, apart from some logic stuff that goes into every lower-division class I teach. Maybe she figured that I know what I'm doing, and so it must be her fault if she didn't recognize anything. Shows what she knows.

And the really weird thing is, she got some stuff right. Like, really right. Although the exam was a disaster overall, she was able to state some theories and arguments very clearly, just like they are on the handout. Eerie. So much so I triple-checked the gradebook against the name and student ID on the exam.

It's all very weird. And it's all my fault. Shit.

--Mr. Zero