Passer Rating

Yesterday I finished grading the worksheets I had handed out to accompany my talk. Even being very generous with the points, I believe the average was somewhere around 70%. I have come to expect such averages on exams in classes on complex topics, but not in a situation where the students are almost handed the answers. In fact, I am not convinced that I could have made it easier. One question required that they answer with "zero"; maybe they took me too literally when I said that the answer was "zero". For all the trouble I had in the first class, they actually had better grades on the worksheet, but not by much. As before, the situation just makes me question whether my instruction is that bad or if the students just don't see or don't care about an opportunity for an easy grade. Maybe it was so easy that it was demeaning.