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[The Mad Engineer]

Well, I'm going to college next year, studying physics.  But I've been doing badly in my physics class recently, having gotten a 6/20 for a lab in the start of the quarter (I forgot to staple on my graphs!).  I worked my ass off on the final version of a lab, which, since I'm in a group of three, I'm doing in tandem with another person.  I looked on teacherease, and I got a 60% on it!  For both labs!  Then, when we got it back in class, the person who also did the final lab got full credit.  I thought there must be some mistake.  Then, when I got my paper back, a large, fat red "Copied!" was scribbled on the last design question.  I am being accused of plagiarism for a question because I made the same mistakes as the other person (It was a group grade, we worked as a group!  There even was time set apart at the beginning of the class so that we could go over it with each other!), and did "less work".  This is also the teacher who recently wrote my recommendation letter for MIT.  With this on my final record, I may not even be able to go to a community college!
HELP!  What do I do?

[Cthulhu]

Can you appeal it?

[The Mad Engineer]

Well, the teacher, my counselor, me, and my parents are going to have a meeting.  I have had experiences with teacher meetings before, however, and it never turns out well.  Either I am cleared, and my teacher who wrote my recommendation letter hates me from now onward, it gets posted in my permanent record and I can't go to a good college, or we agree just to drop the whole thing, my grade keeps suffering, and he never takes what I do seriously anymore (physics is my favorite class...).

[Armok]

That sucks...

((Hows rainbow snail going by the way?))

[DennyTom]

Can the other person from your group support you? Not by saying that he(she) was doing less work but by saying you that were working hard?

[Mr Tk]

Plagiarism is a serious charge. If you can't appeal to the teacher, then I would recommend taking it to the head of your school. It's not something you should take lying down especially if it could affect your ability to get to the university of your choice.

[The Mad Engineer]

*Sigh.  Okay, we got it figured out.  The problem was, that I had done the calculations in my calculator, and filled in the values for my variables later, when I realized we had to show our work.  Unfortunately, I had filled in time as 8.33, instead of 8.33 *10-3.  I had wrong variables, yet the right answer, and I was suspected of cheating.  We got it all figured out with my teacher, who was more understanding than I thought he was.

...

My grade is still not going to change though.  Ah well.  You win some, you lose some.


EDIT:  @Armok:  DNTTRS is almost back on track.  I still need to prepare the final art options for the end of Part 1.

[Soulwynd]

Gesh, I had a similar issue when I was in college. Physics as well. On an algebra test, I did one of the matrix conversions in my head and skipped the calculation. The guy wrote on my paper. "Who did you copy this from?"  I was utterly pissed. In the end, after a lot of complaint, they only gave me half the points because I didn't include the calculation. Better than nothing and being called a cheater. =p

[Neonivek]

Silly Silly Topic creator

Don't you know? There is NO SUCH THING as group projects.

If you treat group projects as a team effort your only going to lose marks in the end. That is why you are never marked as a group.

[The Mad Engineer]

Um, we are being marked as a group...  One or two of us do the lab, the whole group gets our grade...

[Neonivek]

Um, we are being marked as a group...  One or two of us do the lab, the whole group gets our grade...

Really? Then this makes no sense to me.

[AtomicPaperclip]

It pisses me off when I have to write some obscene amount of writing for basic calculations because I can do them in my head or on a calculator.

As a freshman in science we did a week long lab. I did the whole thing by myself, my partner being a lazy bitch the whole time and refusing to do shit. We even had to write journal entries for just such a thing. Did he care? No.

The bitch takes my data, has her friend write the lab, turns it in THREE MONTHS late, and gets a higher score than me because the teacher took pity on her. PISSED ME OFF.

[Neonivek]

It pisses me off when I have to write some obscene amount of writing for basic calculations because I can do them in my head or on a calculator

There is a REAL point to why they made you do it.

The problem is that they drag you through the mud long before they actually show you why.

Reminds me when I was younger and I had to do 50 questions ALL which were something multiplied by 0... what was the point? it is ALWAYS 0

[AtomicPaperclip]

It pisses me off when I have to write some obscene amount of writing for basic calculations because I can do them in my head or on a calculator

There is a REAL point to why they made you do it.

The problem is that they drag you through the mud long before they actually show you why.

Reminds me when I was younger and I had to do 50 questions ALL which were something multiplied by 0... what was the point? it is ALWAYS 0

I lost like 5 points on a test because I didn't show my work on some ridiculously easy problem like 2 sin x = 1, [0, 2pi]

[Zironic]

It's easy to make a few silly mistakes without realizing because you get stuck with the problem as a whole. Wait till you get to college calculus. It's important to write out the basics so you don't forget or skip an important but minor step. It can turn simple problems difficult if you assume your basic math is perfect when it is riddle with human errors occasionally.