[gavinhoward]

I'm on the spectrum.

If I were a professor though, I would use a baseline for every student.

At the beginning of the semester, have an oral exam for a difficult topic that the students are expected to already know. Material from a prerequisite class would be good.

I would always give 100% for that oral exam if the student showed up. And that exam would become that student's baseline; their future oral exams would be judged based on that.

They'll probably be more nervous in front of the professor the first time than the last, so it would actually give them an advantage in later exams.

Probably still problems with that though.

[skeaker]

Definitely. Once word of this system gets out, it will be gamed by students who will throw the first exam deliberately. Even without this sabotage it would still feel extremely unfair to students who did well on the first exam and are now being punished for it.

[gavinhoward]

Well, on future exams, they're still going to have to answer questions with some knowledge, and sabotaging wouldn't help so much with that.

But the other problem is harder to fix. I guess I could be much harsher in the first one, and go easier on the real exams later? Maybe that would reduce the number of students who do well on the first one?

Eh, I'm not a professor. Not my problem.