A Depressing Job

Grading calculus exams is one of the most depressing things one could ever do. It involves balancing the sadness of causing others grief (by significantly reducing their course grade in mere minutes) with the anger of their lack of understanding of "basic" concepts. I perform limit comparison tests in my sleep, why shouldn't they be able to do it once? The most depressing part is that either they are completely stumped by the calculus that they forget basic algebra, or they just did not maintain their skills, thinking they would never be needed.

For instance, consider this gem of a problem. It took me a while to see what they did wrong.

Another interesting one is the following. Try to see if you can see how they got the final answer. It may surprise and shock you how they simultaneously violated two operators.

These moments are not infrequent. At least it doesn't feel as bad when they are not my students, but it really hurts when I know I did this exact problem with them in class.