Partial credit for afternoon problems

[TehMightyEngineer]

I got an email from someone who unfortunately failed a part of the SE exam. They however did find an interesting nugget of information; at the end of the afternoon they ran out of time and had to write out steps for the problem. In their words:

I ran out of time on my last afternoon problem, and had to write out the steps I would take to finish it... I assumed the last part of the problem would be to draw a connection or list the things wrong with a certain scenario... When I finally looked at it, it was another design question. I had enough time to list out the steps I would take and still got an acceptable on that problem - so clearly they don't hold listing out the steps against test takers.

This has been confirmed before; however I don't believe I've seen anyone report getting an "acceptable" without fully completing the problem, only an "improvement required". So, it's definitely worth writing out steps as you can apparently still get full credit even without fully finishing the problem.

 

[Mithrandir918]

I thought you each section (AM/PM) was independent of on another.  If you fail one you fail it all.  Previous colleagues of mine have scored all Acceptable in the afternoon and 24/40 in the AM and did not pass....

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I thought you each section (AM/PM) was independent of on another.  If you fail one you fail it all.  Previous colleagues of mine have scored all Acceptable in the afternoon and 24/40 in the AM and did not pass....

I believe this is true.

The person I quoted did not get all acceptable (one unacceptable) and didn't get a passing morning score, thus the failure. I'm simply remarking that it was interesting they were able to get an "acceptable" for an afternoon problem that they didn't full finish.

 

[Mithrandir918]

Yes

I believe this is true.

The person I quoted did not get all acceptable (one unacceptable) and didn't get a passing morning score, thus the failure. I'm simply remarking that it was interesting they were able to get an "acceptable" for an afternoon problem that they didn't full finish.

Yes, I hear all sorts of good stories about people filling in flow-charts and getting acceptable on the questions.  Feel like there is just too much luck in this exam and subjectivity to ever get a good feel on a passing score.

 

[bassplayer45]

I know when I passed the Lateral, I completely tanked the seismic analysis questions and got a period for the bridge that would only be logical if it was made out of wet spaghetti. I was frustrated and didn't want to go through everything since I just wanted to leave and see my brother and sister in law (also knowing they were about to call 15 minutes), so at the end I wrote about a paragraph saying I knew a period for this bridge should be around "x" and the forces should be in the range of "y" and I more than likely biffed it in this section of my calcs. If i had time i would go back and double check this value because i knew it was wrong. Gave me an acceptable. If they can see your steps were right, or what direction you were going was right, they are very forgiving.

 

[smahurin]

When I took the exam there were I believe two afternoon problems out of the 8 that were confusingly worded.  I wrote a paragraph stating what I thought the problems were asking and how I intended to solve... then did.  I passed the exam, so either I interpreted the questions correctly, or they accepted my rationale/discussion about the wording confusion.

I'm not sure it helped, but it obviously didn't hurt to do this.  I would encourage people to do the same, if they run out of time, or are confused.