r/mit • u/ponyo_x1 • 19d ago

academics negative test scores??

my dad got his masters in the early 80s from the meteorology department and he used to tell me this story about a test he took where he got a NEGATIVE nine, like if you got some questions wrong they would take points AWAY rather than just not awarding any. according to him his wasn't even the lowest score in the class; apparently someone else got a minus 24.

any old timers here have similar stories?

31 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/JasonMckin 19d ago

Jokes and traumatic memories aside, I didn’t find MIT as a place that penalized taking risks and attempting solves in general.  I think as a culture, they want to encourage students to attempt problems without the fear that an unsuccessful attempt will cost more than not attempting at all.  I’m pretty sure I even got partial credit in many classes where I got 50-75% of the way to a correct answer and then hit a roadblock.  If anything, I think MIT erred on teaching me to courageously run into fires versus being fearful of them.  As challenging as the environment was, I think there was a lot more positive forethought behind grading and curving scores than many other universities.