My history TA's one comment changed how I take every exam now

After bombing my first midterm in Intro to American History, my TA wrote 'your facts are right but your answer is a list, not an argument' on the last page. I started outlining my essays before writing anything, even just 4 or 5 bullet points. That simple step forced me to connect events instead of dumping dates. My next exam went from a 68 to an 82, and my final paper got the first A I've had in that class. Has anyone else gotten feedback that felt harsh but ended up being exactly what you needed? I'm curious if it's worth asking TAs for that kind of critique earlier in the semester.

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

faithjones1mo ago

I had almost the same thing happen in my poli sci class sophomore year, the TA circled a whole paragraph and wrote "so what?" in red pen next to it. At first I was mad but then I realized I never actually said what my point was, I just laid out a bunch of stuff that happened. The bullet point thing works great too, I do it on the back of the blue book before I write anything and it takes like two minutes. One tip if you ask TAs for feedback earlier, go to office hours with a draft of an outline instead of just asking "how can I do better" because they give way more useful stuff when they have something to react to. Also save the comments from every paper, I still have mine from junior year and the same notes keep coming up, which tells me what to actually work on.

7