Hedging in Data Commentaries

Dear Professor Burn,

In attention to your request, I prepared the table below to highlight general differences between the regular and makeup exams.

	Regular Exam	Makeup exam
Average score (out of 100)	86	71
Time administered	Wednesday, 7:00 pm	Friday, 4:00pm
Difficulty questions	Average	Average
# of students	125	25
Proctor	Professor	Teaching assistant
Board examples	Yes	No (not considered necessary)
Room environment	About 20C	About 28C

The average score of the makeup exam was 15 points below the average score of the regular exam. Only 25 students attended the makeup exam and the room temperature was a bit higher during the second exam.

I don’t believe there is necessarily any particular reason for lower average performance in the makeup exam. The level of questions difficulty was pretty much the same in the two exams.

One point, however, that we could consider is the number of students who took the makeup exam. There was only 25 students during the second exam and if even very few of them performed poorly in the test that would be enough to substantially decrease the average result of the group. I suggest that we track the worst students’ grades to see if they are concentrated on the makeup exam.

It would also be useful to check if board examples provided during the regular exam helped students score better. Finally, it would be helpful to ask the students if they felt uncomfortable with room temperature during the makeup test. Some of them might have felt disturbed by the environmental conditions.

Best regards,

John