Welcome to POLSC110

2nd block starts. I add another political science class  onto my 4 classes. The professor's a charming old man full of radical comments, and 20 year-old jokes annotated onto the side of his lectures. His answer key is wrong.

Let me explain.

The test comes. I missed a few days previous, decide to review outside the testing center. I'm ready. I know it all, easy stuff, lets do it. I ascend the stone staircase and am hustled through the lines and computers, receive my test with a number and a stamp, and my dull pencil is ready. My first test in the testing center.

Skim the test, its all easy stuff, yada, yada, yada, I arrive at the last part with five questions I know I dont know, so I guess. 5 guessed out of 63 isnt bad. I leave the mass of students behind to wallow in their interrogations and depart to the outside. I slide my test through the happy little machine, feeling good about myself, its going to be a good class. I walk outside and look at the score screen.

I find my number,  and a 68%.

What? Thats not my score. Yeah, but it is.


Next day- Yo, Professor, can I speak with you after class? I missed the class this morning but I go and speak with him in his office. Ample sunlight fills the room. We greet each other with smiles. I notice relatively empty shelves.

He offers his chair, I review the test with the paper, and my answers and the key's answers on the screen.

Lots of red. Alright, that one really was wrong, yeah that one makes since, bad guess here, so maybe I didn't know as much as I had thought. next question

Who wrote the original transcript of the Declaration of Independence?

• James Maddison
• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin
• Thomas Jeffs
• All of the above

Answer is: Benjamin Franklin.

Strange, I guess Historia lied to me. Some other questionable answer latter, I'm ready to leave and to say nothing of it. I will bow out. On the whim, I ask him about this one here about slavery, pointing to the test. 

-Oh yes, the answer is E- he says

-No, the key says its C- I reply

-But its E-

I stop- Whats going on here?- Yeah, I know its E, thats what I put.

The last thing any of us wants to hear is that their tests are being graded improperly. Whats worse? His apparent indifference.

He slips the test from my shocked hand into the drawer. Closes. Subject change. -What you need to do Brother Simons is worry about being on time...- 

Certainly do, admittedly I have not been attending as I should. . . but what about the faulty answer key! Its my logic that being on time to class that has no participation points, will do me little good if the tests are not being graded properly. To shocked to say anything, and to appalled to do anything about-

I bid my farewell.

This is going up to the big dogs.

P.S. and bytheway- Jefferson wrote the Dec. Ben mades some suggestions.