Here are a few things that really irritate me:
- inconsistent usage of Canadian/American/British spelling; for instance, writing ‘favour’ throughout but slipping in something like ‘neighborhood’
- bad marking schemes
- taking questions off after the evaluation is written; for instance, an exam out of 119 becoming out of 100 — in that case, every loss of a mark is much greater in terms of percentage
- an evaluation with required questions that become optional; for instance, questions 101–119 becoming ‘bonus’ questions when nothing specifically makes them harder or more suitable as bonuses
- mentions of topics that pique one’s curiosity, followed by a denial of that curiosity in the form of a “never mind”; for instance, mentioning a piece of highly interesting gossip and then refusing to speak about it
- mainstream media
- constant bombardment of viewers with biased reports; for instance, Lou Dobbs
- mentions of online or Web 2.0 communities specifically with the intention to appear ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ or ‘up-to-date’; for instance, CNN’s unnatural use of Twitter
- Windows Live Messenger’s ads at the bottom of the contact list
EDIT: I’ve removed them by using A-Patch, but A-Patch doesn’t change the fact that I’m annoyed with those ads. - Safari 4′s unreadable tabs on Windows Vista+
- music without verifiable ‘artistry’ to which fanboys and fangirls listen repeatedly or habitually
- books and movies with fans who are attracted by mere plot or appearance or celebrities
- “buggy software”
- EDIT: also, it is hugely distressing for me to hear intelligent people degrade themselves… I understand that not everyone has good self-confidence, but come on… you guys are smart and have amazing potential. Don’t discourage yourself from achievement.
“taking questions off after the evaluation is written; for instance, an exam out of 119 becoming out of 100 — in that case, every loss of a mark is much greater in terms of percentage”
I don’t see what you mean. If you scored, say, 89/119, you’d have less than 75% on that exam; if they reduce the total to 100, your mark goes all the way up to 89%. You will never be worse off; maybe I’m misinterpreting how your marks were changed?
Oh, I got a great idea! There’s also something else you should add! … never mind.
You’re exactly right. (and even that situation sometimes irritates me)
What I really meant to say was this: if you got all of the questions from 101–119 right but questions #91–100 wrong, then removing those 19 questions would make your score 90.0% rather than 92.4%.
Ha! This is funny; as I’m reading this I can tell which “individuals” you’re referring to. GEE!
I see what you mean. Yeah, that is really annoying, I suppose. Or, it would be annoying, if it ever happened. I’ve never had a teacher mean enough to do something like that, thankfully.
“an evaluation with required questions that become optional; for instance, questions 101–119 becoming ‘bonus’ questions when nothing specifically makes them harder or more suitable as bonuses”
This seems like a positive situation as well — realizing you have 19 fewer questions you have to do. Unless they become “bonus” AFTER the actual exam, but even then — you get the marks either way. Isn’t this exactly the situation I described in the above comment?
Hmm. Interesting.
I think the situation I was intending to describe is the easy likelihood of getting over perfect. When it’s out of 100 and you have a number of bonus questions, it’s not necessarily hard to get over perfect. The education system’s marking numbers indicate that a level 4 is 80–100, I believe… so giving marks that are >100 are sort of unnecessarily high.
Balance that with the fact that not all teachers do that, and you have students in one class who have an easier time achieving a high mark compared with students in another class who do not have the benefit of bonuses.
If the bonus questions are of a higher caliber, then by all means, introduce them as a way of allowing very bright students to redeem any other mistakes they may have made.
I strongly agree with the brown edit.
For the record, I think you are the only person who doesn’t like getting high marks easily. For most people, having easy bonuses is great! They help you focus less on earning marks (because it’s much easier to), so you can spend more time actually learning the material.