Thread: This sucks... Failing out

  1. #31
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba
    Which comes down to keeping track of values at certain offsets in an array that represent the pieces and empty squares. That's simple.
    They probably have to enforce the rules of movement for all of the pieces. It's a good excersize for a second year student, it's not quite as simple as it may seem. For example you might think that if a piece moves to a square occupied by an opponent, then the opponent is killed. But this is only true if the piece is not a pawn, unless the pawn is moving diagonlly by one, but it can only move diagonally by one if an opponent is there. And pieces can't move through others, unless it's a knight etc, etc....


    As for failing, that's the point of exams, to test your knowledge. Doing the assignments (even correctly, which you claim you didn't) doesn't mean much if you don't understand the concepts.

    Usually you can only appeal if you feel you were graded unfairly. If you straight up failed the exams, you're probably going to have to take the course again.

  2. #32
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    >They probably have to enforce the rules of movement for all of the pieces.

    Exactly...and that wasn't fun...I can tell you that right now. The basic rules of movement aren't difficult, but checking for check, stalemate, and checkmate? Those can get quite hairy.
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  3. #33
    Ethernal Noob
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    I've did a knights tour class at most.

  4. #34
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    The grade does not say whether you are mature, intelligent, tall, short, or anything else. It tells if you understand the material at hand at the time of the test. It is not a personal attack on you nor is it a representation of what you can do. It IS a representation of what you DID do at the time of the test....and therefore if you received a failing grade in the class....I see no other recourse except for the teacher to fail you since that is what you earned.

    As far as the whole punish you for the rest of your life crapola....get over it folks cuz life isn't simple, isn't easy, and isn't always fair. The winners find a way to succeed amidst all of those truths and the losers sit and whine about it.

    Take your lumps, stop whining, stop trying to make the teacher see it your way (cause it won't work), accept your failing grade and position yourself to do far better the next time around. Beat the crap out of that class the next time you take it. Or you can sit and whine about it and get nowhere.

    Sorry, that's how I see it. Be a winner.

  5. #35
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    A recent story about a failing grade in the life of DavidP:

    This occurred this morning. (January 22nd)

    I am in an intermediate piano class. In our piano class it is required that we turn in floppy disks occasionally with recordings of us playing music that we have been recording.

    My piano class was at 10 AM this morning. I had made previous plans to polish my music over the weekend, record my music at 7 AM this morning, and then turn it in at 10 AM when class began, when the disks were due.

    Waking up at 6 AM this morning, I was easily ready in time, and I left the apartment at about 6:55 AM to start warming up the car (as the temperatures here at freezing right now). When I unlocked the passenger side car door to put in my book bags, I heard some "cracks", and realized that something had gone wrong...most likely because of the ice in the car door lock. When I tried shutting the door, the door simply would not stay shut.

    I continued by turning on the car and letting it warm up, while scraping the ice off that car. After doing that, I tried closing the passenger door again, but to no avail. Taking a length of coaxial cable which I had at my disposal, I tried tieing the door shut. Unfortunately the coaxial cable was too long, which made it difficult to get a good knot. I thought about cutting the coaxial cable to make it shorter, and so I went to the trunk of my car to see if I had any proper tools in it.

    While in the trunk of my car I found a length of rope, which was the perfect length, and so I put away the cable and used the rope instead. Unfortunately, no matter how taught I pulled the rope, the car door would not stay completely shut. It would still open enough that it could be a danger to myself or others on the road. So I decided to drive to school by holding the rope taught in my hand, and providing a constant physical tension to keep the door shut.

    Finally arriving at school (it is now about 7:35 because of this entire ordeal), I try to think of a way I can securely leave my car. I decided the best thing to do was to tape down the rubber stopper which signaled my "car door" light on the dash, and then tie the rope off to something enough to keep the door relatively closed. I searched hurriedly in my car for some tape, but couldnt find any, which means I had no way (to my knowledge) to keep the car-door-light off, and so it would remain on and drain my battery all day long.

    In a miracle of events, I closed the passenger side door one more time, and it stuck shut! The door actually remained shut this time! I tried pulling on it just to make sure...and it stayed shut. I went around to the drivers side and pushed on it...and it stayed shut. Ecstatic, I quickly locked the car and hurried off to the Fine Arts building to go to the piano lab, where I could record my music.

    I arrived at the piano lab at 7:45 AM, 45 minutes after my planned arrival. This did not bode well for me. There was a class schedule for 8 AM, and another class schedule for 9 AM, and then my class at 10 AM. That means I had roughly 15 minutes to record my music, unless the 8 am and 9 am professors would be nice enough to let me use a piano during their class periods to record my music.

    7:45 - I put my floppy disk in the keyboard/piano so I can begin to record my music. The keyboard angrily spits back at me: "Your disk is corrupted!"

    Yet another setback! I cannot record music with a corrupted disk! So I rushed to the bookstore to and bought a box of floppy disks so that I could do my recording. Unfortunately, the 8 am teacher of the piano class had no free pianos in her room. All were being used, and so I could not record my music.

    This was the same case for the 9 am piano teacher.

    10:00 - I walk into class at 10 am with no recorded disk, and the feeling that I have been kicked in the balls a million times in the span of one morning. I explain to the teacher my situation, and that it couldn't have been helped. She replies, "Sorry. I can't give you more time. It wouldn't be fair to the other students."

    Rather than make me angry...it just feels like another kick to the balls....

    So....one of those disks is considered a test grade....Basically I just got screwed because of my car door. Therefore, in response to Bubba:

    >accept your failing grade and position yourself to do far better the next time around

    I accept it...but it doesn't mean it's right.
    Last edited by DavidP; 01-23-2007 at 01:02 AM.
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  6. #36
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    DavidP, your story has nothing to do with that of the original poster, who was simply unable to solve the problems in the time alloted for the exam. What happened to him was not a case of bad luck.
    There are 10 types of people in this world, those who cringed when reading the beginning of this sentence and those who salivated to how superior they are for understanding something as simple as binary.

  7. #37
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I'm not completely oblivious to Bubba's point of view. But I don't think life is that black and white; Either you are a winner, or not.
    Not to mention that it would be hard at best to decide what is a winner. It isn't either that bleak; that notion that life is hard and all... hard is to devote over 10 years to a programming language and see it being killed in one day. However, I'm perfectly happy starting my bookshop.

    A failed test is a failed test, I agree. But nobody is questioning that. Simply reminding that most universities do have in place evaluation systems that go beyond the "you fail, you don't pass" tyranny. Students are often given second chances and sometimes even more in order to avoid losing an whole term. And that is a reality. Don't whine over it.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 01-23-2007 at 07:07 AM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  8. #38
    Its hard... But im here swgh's Avatar
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    Beat the crap out of that class the next time you take it.
    Brilliant statement. Means much more than it stands for. The thing to always better is a previous attempt.
    Last edited by swgh; 01-23-2007 at 07:26 AM.
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  9. #39
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    But really if you feel you're not going to pass the class, drop it. I've always had some sort of pride in not dropping a class. Most times I pass it, but my pride came back to me when I failed my statistics class. I would have been in the same predicament last semester bu I dropped two of my hardest classes because if i stayed I would have failed. They say not to drop because it shows up on your transcript and could "affect employment" but failing classes could affect your school career.

  10. #40
    Its hard... But im here swgh's Avatar
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    But really if you feel you're not going to pass the class, drop it. I've always had some sort of pride in not dropping a class. Most times I pass it, but my pride came back to me when I failed my statistics class. I would have been in the same predicament last semester bu I dropped two of my hardest classes because if i stayed I would have failed. They say not to drop because it shows up on your transcript and could "affect employment" but failing classes could affect your school career.
    I guess thats true. If it shows you have dropped a class as it was too complicated, then in a positive way it does show you have attempted that class, and also shows you are willing to have a go at challenging things. Nobody can do everything 100% perfectly. You are only human after all.
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  11. #41
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    In any case I HAVE to take it again and pass it.

  12. #42
    Its hard... But im here swgh's Avatar
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    i wish you the best of luck indigo. Let us know if you pass it.
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  13. #43
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    Rashakil Fol, you obviously missed the point of my entire post. I was responding (in a story-like form ) to those people who declare that "a failing grade is it. take it or leave it." If you had properly read the thread you would have realized that the idea I was trying to get across is the simple fact that sometimes things happen that are out of our control, and we don't always deserve a failing grade, and THUS is the reason why schools should have some type of "forgiveness" policy (that's what people on this thread like to call it, so I will call it that).

    Just because I didn't directly declare that intent doesn't mean the post was on a tangent.
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  14. #44
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >Either you are a winner, or not.


    hehehe, has anyone seen little miss sunshine?

  15. #45
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Haven't seen yet but I was really surprised today when I learned it was nominated to the oscars.

    And this is really something I need to get out of my chest:

    I REALLY hate Portuguese film distributors or whoever is responsible for something really stupid that has been happening ever since I was a little kid. In Portugal, foreign movies aren't dubbed (thank god for that!). But something else, equally evil happens. We change the titles to the Portuguese language. And on most cases we do it with a twist; we completely change the tiles to the Portuguese language.

    So... Little Miss Sunshine that actually would have been quiet easy to translate to Portuguese, is named here "Family close to an attack of nerves". Yup. No kidding. Just how idiotic is that. I mean... c'mon! I feel embarrassed. It makes us all look like we are retarded or something.

    But does it help selling at least? Hell no!
    I only got interested on the movie when I learned today it got nominated to the oscars. Who here would want to see "Family close to an attack of nerves"!? Geez!

    And this is not the only, the first, or the last movie to be stupidly named by retarded, idiotic, pseudo-defend-the-portuguese-language activists who should really be shot (I hereby change my views on the death penalty!). You wouldn't believe the amount of other sad examples I could give you...

    [/end rant]
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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