Does a good student ask stupid questions?

In response to question How do professors view a student who has good grades but always asks stupid questions?

Students often have a highly distorted perception of themselves with respect to the feelings of their professors. The differential in both power and experience between student and professor is just so large that it's quite common for a student to confuse the very distinct attributes of professorial attitude, personal affection, and intellectual respect.

As such, I would suggest that you really don't know what your professors think of you until you ask them. Maybe you are reading them correctly, but maybe not: many professors are quite pleased to have a student who carefully advocates to improve their understanding of material, even if they might wish to be getting on with the lecture in the moment.

My recommendation is to tell the professor you're thinking of applying to Ph.D. programs and ask them something like:

Do you think that you would be able to write a strong letter of recommendation for me?

The "strong" is important here, because that's what will get you the honest opinion of whether the professor thinks well of you or not, and you don't want letters that are not strong.

I don't think you've provided enough context to really say for sure whether or not your questions would be annoying.

Here's what I'd need to know: Does the professor (or the syllabus) say that you should read from the textbook before you come to class? If so, do you read the book as assigned?

If you constantly interrupted me with a barrage of questions that indicated you hadn't done the assigned reading, then my face might also show some of the consternation that you claim you see.

How do professors think of a student who has good grades but always asks stupid questions?

Generally speaking, I like it when students ask questions. It shows me they are engaged. It shows me they are interested in learning the material. It helps provide feedback when I haven't explained something clearly. Quite often, the one student who is brave enough to speak up is asking for help that other students probably need and appreciate.

That said, though, there are times where there can be too much of a good thing. If one student's questions are so frequent and incessant that it becomes distracting for everyone, that might be viewed negatively. But that's perhaps more of a timing issue than a "stupid question" issue.

2down vote

First, even if your questions annoy your prof intensely, you may still get a good letter. And conversely even if your questions demonstrate your commitment to learning and are actually welcomed, you may not get a good letter. So the only way to know is to ask, Do you think you can recommend me strongly for [whatever] in a letter? And if they say no, don't push them because they are telling you it wouldn't be a positive letter. Now let's tackle those questions. There are so many reasons why I might make a small face when a student asks a question. Imagine we're doing non-university level material and I say "there are five vowel letters in English: A, E, I, O, and U." Up pops your hand and you ask: isn't that 4? No, it's not 4, you've interrupted me for no reason. It's 5, right? Now where were we? What about A? I said A, that was the first one. Oh, sorry, wasn't listening What's a vowel? Either that's what this whole lecture is about or it's in the material I asked you to read before class, or I just covered that on the three previous slides but you were zoned out, or in some other way, a person who doesn't know what a vowel is shouldn't be trying to find out by interrupting a list of them to ask In [some other language] there are 7! Fascinating, but not interruption-worthy. Thanks for sharing. What about Y? I was just breathing in to explain Y, it's a little more complicated. On this one my annoyance is just that you've broken my rhythm, it's actually a fine question and leads to my next point, so I need to relax and keep going Think about the questions you tend to ask. Are they the first kind, where you are correcting or contradicting the prof, pointing out an error, when there is no error, you made a mistake? Try not to do that. Are they overly broad, or do they show that you came to class unprepared? Try not to do that. Are you just randomly sharing your thoughts in the middle of someone else's sentence? That's not a question. Do that only in discussion parts of class. But do keep in mind, there are questions that irritate me that don't make me feel less about you or not recommend you. They are just a little annoying. But if your question is none of these, it's you genuinely seeking clarification on something you just heard and don't understand, then you're probably doing fine. You can always approach the prof after class and ask if your questions are ok. That will clear things up for you, I'm sure. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/70929/how-do-professors-view-a-student-who-has-good-grades-but-always-asks-stupid-ques