To Whom It May Concern:
 
We are writing to you in regards to Professor Tinker’s ACC2101 final. Approximately two weeks ago, Professor Tinker informed us that the final would be an online final incorporating most if not all chapters of the book. Originally, he had assigned 35 problems to be counted as the final. However, by the following week that number had risen to 44. Finally, two days before the exam date, that number had risen to an unreasonable 95 questions, each, as we later found out, to have many parts. We were given a two hour time limit to complete this between 10:30AM-12:30PM on December 17, 2011.
 
Many of us personally emailed Professor Tinker on December 15 and 16 asking him to kindly revert the final back to at most 44 questions because it would be practically impossible to do well on this final given the large quantities of questions. Unfortunately, Professor Tinker did not respond to any of our emails or attempts to contact him both prior to and after the exam.
 
On the day of the final, the class had to face a bombardment of questions. The questions were fairly broad in scope and were reasonable to do. The problem lay in the sheer quantity of questions alotted for a mere two hours. As can be checked in the online reports of the distribution of grades for the exam, most of the class failed.
If Professor Tinker had given us four hours to do the exam, or had cut the questions to half (30-40), the class would have been able to achieve satisfactory grades. 
 
Clearly, something must be done to remedy this issue. We have, as a class, created three possible alternatives which we would be satisfied with and we feel will result in us achieving a fair grade.
 
They are as follows:
• The final may be nullified and our grade be solely based on the homework (which was counted as the rest of our grade anyway). A 5% curve instated due to bugs in the homework (and one homework which was in similar length to the final). Additionally, the extra credit case study assignments should give us bonus points based on how many we did (3 for 1, 5 for 2, 7 for 3).
 
• Since the final consisted of far too many questions, we propose only counting two to three parts of the final—a reasonable amount of questions, and including a curve due to the class operating on the premise that we worked recklessly in order to try to solve as many problems as possible.
 
Please note: An overall curve is unfair because some of us used the second attempts which were available to attain higher grades via submitting our partially completed chapters and then getting the answers and copy-pasting. Students who did this should not be penalized as they may have panicked at the realization that completing even half the final was impossible but students who did not do this should NOT be penalized for NOT using this method. Due to this, we are proposing the alternatives outlined above. We believe this will be a fair way to gauge the class, provided there is an adjusting curve to factor in the fluctuation in grades due to operating under the impression that we had to do 95 problems.
 
We hope you understand our concerns and can agree with one of our proposed solutions.
We look forward to working with you to resolve this issue and coming to a mutually favorable conclusion.
 
Sincerely,
ACC 2101 OSA Section, Fall 2011