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How Universities Grade Their Final Exams

DEPT OF STATISTICS:
- All grades are plotted along the normal bell curve.

DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY:
- Students are asked to blot ink in their exam books, close them and turn them in. The professor opens the books and assigns the first grade that comes to mind.

DEPT OF HISTORY:
- All students get the same grade they got last year.

DEPT OF PHILOSOPHY:
- What is a grade?

LAW SCHOOL:
- Students are asked to defend their position of why they should receive an A; other students may cross examine.

DEPT OF MATHEMATICS:
- Grades will be variable.

DEPT OF LOGIC:
- If and only if the student is present for the final exam and if the student has accumulated a passing grade -- then the student will receive an A; else, the student will not receive an A.

DEPT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE:
- Random number generator determines grade, except in the year 2000, when no one is quite certain that will still work properly.

MUSIC DEPARTMENT:
- Each student must figure out his grade by listening to the instructor play the corresponding note (+ and - would be sharp and flat respectively).

DEPT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION:
- Everybody races; 1st place = A, 2nd place = B, etc..

1. Don't abbrev.
   
   
2. Check to see if you any words out.
   
   
3. Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
   
   
4. About sentence fragments.
   
   
5. When dangling, don't use participles.
   
   
6. Don't use no double negatives.
   
   
7. Avoid alliteration. Always.
   
   
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
   
   
9. Contractions aren't necessary and won't be as effective.
   
   
10. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
    
    
11. One should never generalize.
    
    
12. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
    
    
13. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
    
    
14. Be more or less specific.
    
    
15. Understatement is always best and generalizations must always be eliminated.
    
    
16. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
    
    
17. Simplify! How? Eliminate one-word sentences.
    
    
18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
    
    
19. The passive voice is to be avoided.
    
    
20. Go out of your way to avoid colloquialisms, ya' know?
    
    
21. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
    
    
22. Who needs rhetorical questions?
    
    
23. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
    
    
24. Just between you and I, case is important.
    
    
25. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
    
    
26. Don't use commas, that aren't necessary.
    
    
27. Its important to use apostrophe's right.
    
    
28. It's better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.
    
    
29. Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.
    
    
30. Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized.
    
    
31. a sentence should begin with a capital and end with a period
    
    
32. Use hyphens in compound-words, not just where two-words are related.
    
    
33. In letters compositions reports and things like that use commas to keep a string of items apart.
    
    
34. Watch out for irregular verbs which have creeped into our language.
    
    
35. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
    
    
36. Avoid unnecessary redundancy.
    
    
37. Don't write a run-on sentence you've got to punctuate it.
    
    
38. A preposition isn't a good thing to end a sentence with.
    
    
39. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)

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