Yet More Grading
Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike grading?
Having just finished the term papers for the lab section I teach, I'm now grading exams. I drew what is apparently a more difficult couple of problems this time around. I don't personally think they're too tough; it's just a two-parter asking students to write out the genotypes of a couple of fruit flies and then use a Punnet square to predict the genotypes, phenotypes and genders of their offspring.
There are a lot of very strange fruitflies being born from this mating, though. Extra chromosomes keep cropping up in some, whereas others are males lacking a Y chromosome. Still others are lacking genes for one of the two traits involved.
I dislike grading because I don't like to be a bearer of bad news, and there are a lot of students who are going to be getting some bad news when these exams are handed back in a few days. Of course, I also dislike grading because it keeps me out of the lab. I've had to order some new primers and they won't come until tomorrow, so that's not as big a deal at the moment. My goal, though, is to get these exam responses done with today so that I can at least do a little bit of bench work tomorrow in between my other commitments for the day.
I plan on once more going after the cox1 gene from Neomida bicornis with the new primers. That, however, is a story for another day. For now... its back to grading.
