MovieChat Forums > The Paper Chase (1973) Discussion > Kingsfield Grading the Final

Kingsfield Grading the Final


I just watched this film for the first time in about 30 years and my normal habit with any movie I record is to check the trivia section, the goof section, and the message board before deleting the movie from the DVR, in case there is something brought up I want to look at again (Like in the goof section it mentioned that Bottoms called Ed Herrman "Ed" at one point instead of his character name of Thomas. I had to go see that. Herrman's reaction was pretty funny, like he was waiting for the director to yell "CUT")).

In this case I have read two or three messages mixed into different threads indicating that Kingfield just glanced at a couple of the answers on Hart's test and then wrote a grade on the front without actually reading much of anything. That would seem to indicate Kingfield gave grades based on the name and not on the work, which to me would seem to be way out of character for him.

I rewatched the scene and it looks to me like Kingfield was grading the exams thoroughly. What you see in the scene is Kingfield picking up a blue book, glancing at what appears to be the last page for just a second, then focusing on another page, giving the top answer on that page a 6 and then the bottom answer a 5.

At that point Kingfield looks at the front of the book where he already has a 33 and a 31 written down. He then adds an 18 and then an 11, totaling a 93 for an "A".

I've been grading university physics exams for over 20 years and what Kingfield did looked so much like what I do when grading exams.

First Kingfield was grading one page at a time. In other words all of the answers on page one would have been graded on every test before he started on page 2 answers, and so on. That's why the 33 and the 31 were already written on the front of the book. I believe the reason Kingfield looked at the last page first is because when picking up the book he realized he forgot to write the score for that page (an 18) on the front of the book (I've done that many times). Kingfield was probably grading the pages out of order. I usually do that, starting with the questions that I know are going to be harder to grade.

Kingfield then reads quickly through the last page. If the student answers the questions perfectly then it only takes about as long as he took to write out the scores. Also, since students tend to make the same mistakes you will see them over and over again and grading them becomes as quick as grading a perfect answer. That's why you grade one page at a time because the common mistakes stay very fresh in your mind.

When Kingfield turns to the front page we see the 33 and 31 already there. He adds the 18, the grade he had forgotten to write down and had to check, and then the 11, being the total of the 5 and 6 we saw him write down.

So just in case anyone saw that scene and thought Kingfield was slacking it looked to me like he was spending a lot of time grading them.

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