Issue 23, Fall 2002

William A. McEachern, Editor

Out Of Exams!

I was passing out midterm exams in a 350-person class of economic principles when I ran out of them, ending up about 50 short. I couldn't believe it! The exam consisted mostly of multiple-choice questions printed on five sheets. The class period was only 50 minutes and the lecture hall was across campus, so there was no time to run more copies. What a mess! What would you do?

Foremost in my mind was fairness (students focus most on this too). Postponing the exam until the next meeting would be unfair to those ready to take it as scheduled. I decided to offer each student the choice of taking the exam as scheduled or taking a different exam on the same material during our next class meeting, two days later. After my announcement, some students let out a cheer and about half left. I then wrote a new exam, trying to maintain the same degree of difficulty. As it turned out, the average grade on the delayed exam was lower than on the regularly scheduled one, which one might expect based on adverse selection.

My solution was not perfect (it ate up an additional class period and let some unprepared students off the hook at the scheduled time). But I heard not a single complaint. I would welcome other solutions to the out-of-exams problem. What if you come up short on the final exam? Any suggestions for that nightmare?

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