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Today I got back a paper I wrote in English, I got full points, but I made a few typos, things like "to" instead of "too". I look over at my friend's paper and see the same mistakes, but he got marked down for them and I didn't. Normally I do better than he does in that class, but he always gets marked down for things I don't get marked down for even when our work is of the same quality.

I think what is happening here is that since my teacher knows that I know what I'm writing and all the gramatical rules, he gives me a break on some things. Other people in class whom he's not sure of, he marks down when they make a mistake because he doesn't know if they know it or not yet.

So...have you ever been awarded some forgiveness because your teachers know what you're capable of? Or not?

Another curious thing is that I can turn in things three weeks late; the teacher says they'll be late and only be worth partial credit, but I get full credit for them anyway.

The same thing has happened to me. I was testing for my glider pilot's solo rating and marked down the stall speed as something like "64 mph" instead of "65 mph". However, I was awarded full marks because "I was close enough and they knew what I meant".

To be honest, it seriously annoyed me! In fact, I went and told the teacher that I knew it was wrong and I shouldn't have been given 100%. I think he was quite shocked and he refused to change my grade. I've always been bugged by it.

I think that it has something to do with the teachers knowing you (as my teacher knew me quite well) and your capabilities but I also think part of it might be that the teachers sometimes grade things at different times. If one essay with a few basic grammatical errors was at the beginning, it might get higher marks than one at the end after the teacher has seen the same mistakes through numerous essays and is frustrated by it.

I wouldn't read too much into it - but I would talk to the teacher about it.

I've never experienced that, but I did experience something almost as infuriating. After reading Romeo and Juliet, we were supposed to write a letter to the Prince explaining who we thought was at fault for the lover's deaths, and why. Our teacher swore up and down that nobody got anything higher than a regular A (for some reason, our high school counted 98+ as an A+). She loved my paper, and asked if she could use it as an example for those who needed to edit theirs (below a C, I believe). We were all given our papers after she read mine. At the top of my paper was an A+. This astonished me, as I hadn't been able to make it to most of my classes that semester, due to depression issues that had me in the hospital for quite a while, so it didn't make sense that I would be able to even get the highest grade in the class.

I once wrote a paper in 5th grade, which my mother showed to one of her college professors. The instructor guessed the author at a high school level. I was extremely proud of myself.