Finals Time

So I'm sitting here giving a final to a class of about 25 (and blogging to avoid grading a paper from another class). It's funny, I never gave much thought to constructing exams until I started teaching - it's actually quite an art. You have to balance relatively easy questions with hard ones, try to cover the class's most important material and make it intellectually challenging. Plus, you have to make it long enough so that people are actually challenged, but not so long that you kill your students. And, of course, you have to make it so that you can actually grade it rather quickly.