When and how should you talk to a professor if you think you deserve a different grade? I recently was returned a midterm I wrote. One question I interpreted differently than what was intended. As a result I got 0.5/3 marks, which isn't a big deal but considering the test was only out of 15, it adds up. Due to timing conflicts I'm unable to meet the prof during office hours, but have scheduled to talk to him after next class.

I'm getting a bit stressed out, I'm uncertain what to say and what to ask for. If I had interpreted the question he intended it to, then I'm sure I could have gotten full marks. Any suggestions? This is the second time it happened but the first was only for 0.5 mark, so I let it slide.

The question had to do with output of a program and asked "what are all possible outputs of the program?" and I wrote down the correct answer, but what he was getting at was if the program was rerun the output may be in a different order so he wanted the answer to have all possible permutations.

Does anyone have recomendations on how many marks to ask for or have a policy on when to talk to the prof when you think you deserve more marks?
Does anyone have recomendations on how many marks to ask


Yes, one: do not, absolutely, ask for a specific amount of marks. Explain your interpretation, but leave to the professor to decide whether you deserve more marks or not and, in case, how many.