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jc6chan
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28 Sep 2010, 8:36 am

Anyone ever had an A (80% or above) and a fail (below 50%) in the same term? I have.

In first year 2nd term, I had 87% in physics (which was unexpected) and a 48% in Chem Lab (which I retook and passed).

In second year first term, I had an 80% in Calculus, 45% in Electricity and Magnetism and a 43% in Linear Algebra.

Could this have to do with the aspie trait of narrow interests?



gemstone123
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28 Sep 2010, 9:58 am

jc6chan wrote:
Anyone ever had an A (80% or above) and a fail (below 50%) in the same term? I have.

In first year 2nd term, I had 87% in physics (which was unexpected) and a 48% in Chem Lab (which I retook and passed).

In second year first term, I had an 80% in Calculus, 45% in Electricity and Magnetism and a 43% in Linear Algebra.

Could this have to do with the aspie trait of narrow interests?


I do normally do better in subjects or areas which interest me so I suppose that could be an aspie trait. Depends on the person I suppose.


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Hector
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28 Sep 2010, 10:08 am

In graduate school I've had a record of keeping up with continuous assessment and messing up exams. I've failed a couple of subjects that were purely exam-based and barely passed a couple of others, while doing well otherwise.



chaotik_lord
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28 Sep 2010, 10:53 am

Yes. In my first year of high school I failed Chemistry but received an A in English and in Computers. I think mediocrity defined my performance in all other courses that year.

In college, I received straight A's (typically around 100 percent) in any all all Psychology courses, so I do believe that special interests may aid in either motivation or understanding, as Psychology is a direct corollary to my primate behavior interest and is in fact a typical undergraduate study for later specialized degree work.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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28 Sep 2010, 12:17 pm

I think this is textbook Aspie! I think as people with Asperger's we tend to have more patchy skills than average. I mean, every human being on the face of the earth has patchy skills, including patchy social skills, and every other area. We just tend to be more this direction.

My high energy time time is the first two hours after I wake up. That is, I am a morning lark (even when I'm waking up at 8:30!). You may be a night owl. Now, something I have found that sometimes works is to set the books out or otherwise kind of loosely plan is to use my next high energy period to go out a subject I have been struggling with and to go at it in a new direction. I even have a saying, don't try harder, try diagonally! This sometimes works, no guarantees of course.



9of47
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29 Sep 2010, 6:07 am

In my first year I had most of my results in the 70s. First semester in second year I had two marks in the 60s, an 82 and a fail. Then my grades started plummeting. I think my patchiness started to show and what initially worked is no longer working. Even a change in majors towards what I really wanted (Pure Mathematics and Chemistry) hasn't proven completely fruitful, although partly due to other things happening as well. I'm hoping I can turn it around but I need to be motivated first.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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29 Sep 2010, 1:53 pm

Have you tried jumping ahead? It sounds counter-intuitive but sometimes it works.



9of47
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30 Sep 2010, 6:06 am

Not beyond the first two weeks of my subjects. Maybe I should try it. Thanks for your suggestion. :D



Avarice
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02 Oct 2010, 4:55 am

I remember getting a D in Japanese two years ago but all my other grades were A's. I laughed at it, because of how funny it looked.



DNForrest
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02 Oct 2010, 6:13 pm

Well, I've never actually failed a class, but there was one term where I failed the first exam, then set the high-score on the final. The professor usually refused to curve on a grade, but felt he had to just to give me an A.



Cyanide
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03 Oct 2010, 2:07 am

I've had an A- and a C- in the same term... Ironically they were both Econ theory classes. Intermediate Micro Theory was taught by a grad student, but he was good at teaching and his lectures were fairly interesting. Intermediate Macro Theory, on the other hand, was taught by a grad student who sucked at teaching, and I also hated his method of testing. I ended up retaking the class with a different teacher and got a B+.

I've gotten A-/B+ grades in almost all of my econ classes, but in all my gen ed classes I didn't care about, I usually got B-/C grades.



lunairetic
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03 Oct 2010, 12:18 pm

(So A is from 80% ? Quite low.)

It didn't happen to me.



MattTheTubaGuy
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10 Oct 2010, 10:07 pm

yep, I got an A+ in astronomy, and a D in maths last year. because I had to pass that maths course, I had to redo it first semester this year, and got an A! :D
my 1st semester grades were quite random actually, I got an A+,A,A-,B+,B, and C.
I hope I can do that good this semester. I think I will definitely get an A or A+ in astronomy, plus an A in Electromagnetism. I hope I get at least an A- in Quantum Physics. I will probably get a B or B+ in my lab course. I am worried about maths though, hopefully I pass both of them, or else that will really screw things up for next year.


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Emeria
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12 Oct 2010, 3:51 pm

Yes. I have gotten a wide spread of grades in one term. Usually this is because I spend all my time working on one class (or sometimes, two classes, depending) and I don't stop to do homework or study for the subjects that I do not like.



aleclair
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14 Oct 2010, 7:05 pm

This still has not happened. That being said, in the math department, the A-B cutoff tends to be low. I sat in (well, took, but you get the idea) an upper-division math exam once where the average was somewhere in the lower-to-mid fifties. In that class, the exam average started in the upper 70s and by that exam was in the fifties, but somehow I managed to get the same score (around 65%) on all three exams. I am still uncertain how I managed a "B" in that class. The "A" cutoff ended up being around 80%, if I recall right.

I'm imagining the reason I still have not got a "C" or a "D" is because it's nearly impossible to get one unless you are deliberately aiming for one. I find that usually, if you know the definitions and can prove simple consequences of the definition or simple corollaries of an important theorem, you're most of the way through a math exam. I sat in (well... again, took) a Real Analysis exam last night where I don't think I cited a single theorem from the course, but I ended up citing almost every definition. So the amount of material you need to know is fairly low, and as well, professors tend to normalize grades (well, usually) so that half of everyone's getting a B or more.



A350XWB
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20 Oct 2010, 8:12 pm

I was lucky I was able to snatch a B- out of "single-variable analysis I" while having As and A+s elsewhere. Because I was going to beg for a girlfriend all over the campus last semester to find the one I wanted (or, as I would say, needed) and almost did, to an extent.

Needless to say, I will never take multi-variable analysis because it is a surefire way to destroy my GPA...


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