not able to answer

I've just broken the back of that stack of assignments I've been feverishly marking for the past half week. On a tight schedule with unfamilar data it hasn't been the most tranquil of times.

I'll tell you what's the most distressing thing of all: it's seeing students who failed to venture even the attempt at an answer. Honestly, one student's paper looked like this:

6. Not able to answer.
7. Not able to answer.
8. Not able to answer.

I never used to know why lecturers spent so much time exhorting their classes not to leave blanks - I never really believed anyone did that. Not when the questions are worth ten marks anyway. Now I know, and it's not just for the student's benefit either. If they've written something, you can at least try and treat it sympathetically, or give them credit somewhere else seeing as how they've made an effort. But if you can't even see how their mind is working, they've left you with absolutely no option but to give them zero.

It breaks my heart, it really does.

Unless, of course, they're the same people who who submitted their hand-ins with single spacing and font sizes less than 12 and not knowing how to spell "auxiliary". They, obviously, deserve everything they get.