David White's  Instablog

Some gossip seems to be using an old grade challenge in College (U.C. Berkeley) to try to say I am not truthful about my stock calls, etc. Hence I think I need to clarify this.

I challenged about 20% of a full professor's answers on one final exam. To support my claim I got a letter from an expert in the field of each question. One letter came from one of the editors of a book titled "The Kidney". He was widely regarded as an expert on the kidney; and I talked to the biggest expert at Stanford too, who agreed with him. Another letter came from a UCSF professor who was doing research on the exact topic of the question. I located him through a highly esteemed full professor in Biochemistry at U.C. Berkeley. In other words some professors at U.C. Berkeley agreed that I deserved to win my challenge. That UCSF professor later became head of the UCSF Biotech Center. It would seem he was really an expert. A third professor did not fully agree with me on another question. However, she did think I had sufficient reason to challenge my grade. She did seem to believe that my grade did not reflect the actual level of my knowledge. I later heard a rumor that she started a research project to investigate my contention. I heard she end up proving me correct. I heard some comments about my advancing medical science to get my grade changed. Much of the rumors about the third case above was just rumor, as I have stated. However, there is probably at least a 75%-80% chance that what I heard happened exactly as I have stated.

I further point out that I did not get my grade changed based on these disagreements. I only got the three professors involved (one especially) to agree that my test was not a fair test of my knowledge or performance. My argument was: the professor could not possibly have taught me how to answer the questions correctly, if he could not answer them correctly himself. I thought then and I think now that this was a fair argument.

I won the right to take another test. I had to wait until the class was taught again to make it a fair situation. I got my grade changed to reflect my performance on that test and on the previous two test in the original class. I ended up with an A-. It was only that low because I didn't realize exactly what the professor was asking for on a large question on the second test. I had actually known all of the things the professor wanted me to write down. However, I did not understand that he was asking for all of that data. I gave what many would consider a stock answer to that question. That's the way it goes sometimes.

At least two of the professors were very amicable throughout this process. They even seemed a bit grateful to me for updating some of their course material, although they were not grateful for all the extra trouble. I would say we were generally on good terms after this was all over.

David White