What was the worst reason a teacher gave you a bad grade?

Because he didn't read my paper.

It was a university class where a TA was responsible for grading the papers.

He was clearly overwhelmed and just reading introductions and grading based on them alone.

I had a two-part introduction that fully addressed the prompt,

but as he only read the first part, I got my paper back with a big

C at the top. I ended up getting full credit after I challenged the initial grade.

My first large college paper, for a pre-Civil War history class, freshman year, came back with a

giant red D written on it, with practically no feedback. I was in a writing room and I'd always excelled at

essays, so I was sort of shocked. Went to the professor and asked him about the grade and lack of

instruction. He sighed, looked down and said, West half, I don't like you. He went on and on after that with

some bullcrap reasons, but apparently the biggest shoe came from the first week of

class. He was talking about Manifest Destiny and said something like, now you have to remember

back in these days, there were about 50 to 100 miles between towns out in the Western USA. And I'd

raised my hand and said that there was still 50 to 100 miles between towns in the Western US. He said

I was exaggerating and I told him I wasn't

because that's where I grew up. That paper was 40% of our grade. He refused to change the grade or

even reread it. I scraped a C-plus in that class and I was so freaking proud of that grade,

even though it was the worst grade I received in my life. At the end of the semester, I decided

to ask him for his

grading documentation to see if I could challenge the paper with the school, but he claimed that

he'd already thrown it away. I found out later that was bullcrap too, but I didn't press any further.

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