For the first time in quite a while I had several students complain about the final. Part of the issue is that we give 3 section exams then give a comprehensive final which is worth 50% of the grade. A fair number of the students just work to memorize all the material then forget it the day after the exam so studying the material for the final is like learning it anew. The student who wrote felt the questions were not reflective of the material. For several reasons he is wrong. First the questions for the section exam and the final are put together at the same time with 70% of the questions coming from a pool of questions used in previous exams. It is hard to imagine that all the instructors in the course chose picky questions. The second is that the exam does not have to reflect all the material. It is to test the level of their knowledge. I would argue that the level of knowledge in part of the course would be reflective of the students level of knowledge in most of the course. In the past I have looked at the exam scores for the students. In general a student who does well on one exam will do well on all of them. In general a student who does poorly on one exam will do poorly on all of them. There are of course exceptions and basing the grade on 3 section exams and a final avoids some anomalies but in general it is true.