Choose any of your sections. Now, before you hand out your next objective assessment, write down a quick prediction of every student’s exam grade.

Grade them and compare the results.

Deduct points for every score you mis-predicted, one point for every letter grade you flopped. For instance, if you guessed James would score a B and he flunked, deduct three points. You may not deduct four points; you may only sock yourself in the nose.

There is no winning in this game, there is only less losing.

Of the 27 students who took Wednesday’s concept quiz,

• I guessed 7 grades correctly.
• I overestimated 18 grades.
• I underestimated 2 grades.
• My score was -30.  (Off by 1.1 grade per student.)
• James wasn’t a hypothetical student.
• I blew it with cone surface area.

Questions of what all this means, what constitutes a good score (-30 does not, frankly), whether a good score off this metric should even matter to teachers, and, morally, what it means for the teacher to predict a failing grade, are left as exercises to the reader, who, the writer hopes, won’t be stingy with commentary.

I never said it was a fun game.

(May as well officialize it. If you teach math, consider yourself memed.)