Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Maciej Bawol
20280751
CISC 223
January 15, 2025

Kai Salomaa
Department
Queen’s University
salomaa@queensu.ca

To whom it may concern,

I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to formally request a review of my exam grade for CISC 223. I would like to respectfully address some concerns I have regarding the grading of my exam, as well as my experience during the review session.

First, I believe that many of my answers were marked down unfairly. During our classes, we went through specific examples and solutions, which I made sure to follow closely while completing my exam. In addition there were past exams that I followed a lot, and considering we were allowed to bring notes into the exam, I brought some question solutions to what would have been on the exam, and although the exam didn't have the exact same questions/solutions, they were very similar, and the notes still could guide me to the correct answer since the only major difference would have been slightly different numbers. However, upon reviewing my graded exam, I noticed that I was penalized on several questions where I followed the class examples to the best of my ability, and I was marked as though I did something completely different. There are areas where I did something wrong of course, however not to the degree that the exam grade would reflect. I feel that this was an oversight in the grading process, and I would appreciate a more thorough explanation of why these particular penalties were applied, in addition to an exam regrade since some people that I studied with got much higher grades then me with virtually the same notes in the exam.

Additionally, I attended the review session to better understand the reasoning behind the grades I received. Unfortunately, I found the experience to be less than helpful. I attempted to discuss my concerns with you, but I felt that I was not given the opportunity to fully explain myself. Whenever I tried to raise a point or ask for clarification, I was quickly interrupted with broad responses that did not address my specific questions. This left me feeling that my concerns were not fully heard or considered.

I would also like to share that I have been facing some personal challenges that affected my academic performance. I have been seeing a personal counsellor on campus to address these issues, and the support I have received has helped me improve substantially. I have attached some of the meeting confirmations that I could find in my email inbox, and there were more meetings booked after the meetings themselves which is why they might not be on my email. While I am committed to overcoming these struggles, I felt that these challenges may not have been fully accounted for during the exam evaluation process.

Given this, I kindly request that my exam be re-evaluated with these points in mind, to boost my grade to at least not a failing grade and potentially a passing grade to satisfy the prerequisite grade I need for that course. I am confident that with the proper context, my performance on the exam will more accurately reflect the effort and understanding I have of the course material.

I appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to your response. Thank you for considering my petition.

Sincerely,
Maciej Bawol
20mjb21@queensu.ca