Strawberry Limeade Confetti
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
You know what I'm talking about right? The fill in the bubbles with a number 2 pencil? A friend told me that if you rub chapstick across some part of the sheet, the machine that does the grading will automatically count all your answers as correct. Sounds suspicious to me. Any thoughts?
Strawberry "Particularly because she didn't get 100% on any test we took. Hmm..." Limeade
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posted
Well, if she never got a 100 on anything, then why are you even asking?
-------------------- "Dear Lord, please protect this rockethouse and all who dwell within..." Posts: 1093 | From: Japan | Registered: Jul 2003
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Here's a result from google. The only other chapstick on Scantron page result was a xanga.
quote: And as a final note, CHAPSTICK DOES NOT WORK! I don't know who started it, but I have tried all flavors of chapstick thinking it might be that. But it hasn't worked. I have tried all different brands of lip balm as well. It still has not worked. Perhaps it worked back in the day, but it doesn't now.
posted
Actually, the whole concept seems illogical to me. Even when erasing you have to be careful to remove all the graphite or it will mark the answer wrong. I can see how smearing chapstick on it might make the machine count all the answers as wrong but not as correct.
-------------------- I'm back to lurking. Posts: 2709 | From: Illinois | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I heard this when I was in college. What I understood was that you were supposed to rub the chapstick along the part of the scantron where the machine would mark the answers wrong, leaving a little pink dash. After you got your test back, supposedly you could rub the pink dashes off. Then, with no pink dashes, I guess you could argue that the grade the machine gave you was wrong. I was always too scared to try it and my guess is, Limeade's friend is too. Posts: 257 | From: Georgia | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The closest thing that might be true is that it causes all the spaces covered to count as being marked, including the correct ones. However, most systems are programmed so that you must have only the correct spaces marked.
-------------------- "Well, it looks we're on our own ... again."--Rev. Lovejoy Posts: 3572 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: Sep 2003
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Strawberry Limeade Confetti
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
quote:Originally posted by ASL: Well, if she never got a 100 on anything, then why are you even asking?
Because I never actually saw her do it. They monitor you pretty closely in the tests that we took, and I didn't know if she had the opportunity. Or maybe she was doing it wrong. I just wanted to see what other people thought or had heard. That's why this site is here, right?
posted
Comment: Students are spreading the notion that rubbing chapstick on (various reported locations) of their ScanTron answer sheet will result in a perfect test score. While I believe that the wax may eventually gum up the machine's drive mechanism or reader, I cannot see how it would result in altering the score. Besides, teachers actually handle and see every answer sheet as they are inserted into the machine (at least at our high school of 2000 students - perhaps there are auto-loaders available).
Posts: 36029 | From: Admin | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
How about that little area marked "Subjective Score - Instructor Use Only". I don't know what that does exactly, but suppose you marked that area with something the machine could "see", but people can't. Are scantrons read electrically or optically nowadays?
Posts: 2352 | From: California | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Our department's Scantron machine is so finicky that if a card has anything on it--a stray mark, a smudged erasure--it kicks the card out with an annoying "ZZZZZZAAAAAH!" sound and tells the instructor "Read Error: Hand Grade."
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Chapstick? Seriously? Whatever happened to "I heard that studying and paying attention in glass practically guarentees a higher score?"
My former employer had tests for the sales people about the products. They were taken on bubble sheets. The district office had a scantron to grade them, but most managers didn't want to be embarrased by having employees who failed. In order to ensure that their employees would pass, the managers would pre-grade the tests with some kind of hand-made master template, usually made by punching out the correct spaces on a blank sheet with a whole punch. Laying the template over a completed test quickly revealed incorrect answers, as those bubbles were not filled. Enough of those could be corrected, either by the employee or the manager, to make sure every test submitted would pass.
I would think at least some professors or TA's would do the same. It wouldn't be hard to double check a suspiciously high or low score manually.
-------------------- "If I didn't see it and didn't know it was a real news report, I wouldn't believe it. I mean, how nutty can you get?"-Pat Robertson Oct 26, 2006. Posts: 2936 | From: Mean Streets of West Virginia | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
The only way it would be possible would be if the Scantron reader had a bug in it that resulted in a perfect score and smearing lipstick on the sheet would trigger that bug.
-------------------- All posts foretold by Nostradamus.
Turing test failures: 6 Posts: 5481 | From: Decatur, GA | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Elwood Cordon Blues: Chapstick? Seriously? Whatever happened to "I heard that studying and paying attention in glass practically guarentees a higher score?"
My former employer had tests for the sales people about the products. They were taken on bubble sheets. The district office had a scantron to grade them, but most managers didn't want to be embarrased by having employees who failed. In order to ensure that their employees would pass, the managers would pre-grade the tests with some kind of hand-made master template, usually made by punching out the correct spaces on a blank sheet with a whole punch. Laying the template over a completed test quickly revealed incorrect answers, as those bubbles were not filled. Enough of those could be corrected, either by the employee or the manager, to make sure every test submitted would pass.
I would think at least some professors or TA's would do the same. It wouldn't be hard to double check a suspiciously high or low score manually.
See, I remember our teachers doing that. I don't know if the school was cheap, or if the instructor prefered to do it this way, but a lot of tests were graded with the holepunch method.
posted
It probably doesn't work. Not that I ever bothered with it, I didn't. Basically, if I didn't deserve the grade, I didn't get the grade. My fault, my problem. No one elses.
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posted
Most students don't seem to realize this, or perhaps they just don't bother thinking it through in their zeal to cheat, but trying to gimick your test sheet normally results in a higher percentage of INCORRECT answers scored by a Scantron Optical Mark Reader. If the reader has trouble making a determination of correct vs incorrect, it will mark the answer incorrect. The assumption is that questions answered correctly, but marked as incorrect will be more likely to generate a request for review from the student.
Using methods to try and change how the Scantron OMR reads a test form as a whole generally only result in the form getting kicked out with an error. In this case, the form is usually hand scored by the instructor negating any funny business on the part of the student anyway.
I've confirmed this information with one of our QA departments as well as tech support.
The only "secret" I know of to a great score is to be prepared for a test by studying your material.
--- Current Scantron Employee, December 2006 ---
-------------------- --- Skeptical? Who me? Posts: 3 | From: San Diego, California | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote:Originally posted by BeachLife: Ack, zombie thread!
Perhaps, but it was a good post with interesting information!
Welcome, Lhaffinatu!
-------------------- Come on, come on - spin a little tighter Come on, come on - and the world's a little brighter Posts: 5595 | From: Columbus, OH : The Soccer Capital of America | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Appropriate timing. Our final exams are looming, and since the Registrar's Office wants us to turn in final grades no later than 24 hours from the time a final exam is supposed to begin, most of us use multiple-choice finals (not enough time to grade 125 essays in 22 hours).
I'll be on Chapstick watch.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Brad from Georgia: Appropriate timing. Our final exams are looming, and since the Registrar's Office wants us to turn in final grades no later than 24 hours from the time a final exam is supposed to begin, most of us use multiple-choice finals (not enough time to grade 125 essays in 22 hours).
I'll be on Chapstick watch.
My wife is in the same boat. I don't see her on final days as she has to get ALL grades in within 24 hours of the final. That more or less means she lives in her office. I might bring the kids in for dinner once in a while (so they remember who "Mommy" is ) Of course, the university then takes 2+ weeks to get them out to the students, but SHE is required to get her part done 24- hours.
Sorry, I guess this should be in rantidote...
-------------------- And now for something completely different... Posts: 4164 | From: Alabama | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
We have to give a final. I generally give lit classes a "take-home" essay part due a week before the scheduled final, so I can get it graded, and then give a Scantron reading-quiz sort of component on final exam day. But this is Hell Week in Cripple Creek, so if I'm scarce, that's the reason.
-------------------- "No hard feelin's and HOPpy New Year!"--Walt Kelly Hear what you're missing: ARTC podcasts! http://artcpodcast.org/ Posts: 7581 | From: Gainesville, Georgia | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Hey! I just finished my microeconomics final, and the girl 2 rows over from me was using chapstick on her scantron form! It didn't seem like she was trying to hide it though... hmm.
-------------------- My software never has bugs. It just develops random features. Dr. Wilson: Beauty often seduces us on the road to truth. Dr. Gregory House: And triteness kicks us in the nads. -House MD Posts: 114 | From: Glastonbury, CT / Houghton, NY | Registered: Jun 2006
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) Of course, the university then takes 2+ weeks to get them out to the students, but SHE is required to get her part done 24- hours.
