End of the semester student blues

To compensate for a missed class, TPP's students were given an out-of-class assignment before Thanksgiving break that is 16 days ago and it was due today.  However on Weds when normally they would have received another out-of-class research part of their final exam (1 week ahead), TPP told them the pre-Thanksgiving take-home assignment was actually to be part of that part of their final exam and it was still due today, there was such consternation!  Even outrage!  You see rather than using all that time to good advantage, many of them had not done a thing and now it's due and it's part of their final.  How terribly unfair is that?  This is just one of the easier ways to separate the sheep from the goats.  Two students who had handed in their work early wanted it back to do a better job!  You mean you didn't do your best job?  What is TPP to think?  And those who had not done anything yet feel they got cut short on time because they expected an assignment due next Wednesday, but after having more than two weeks to work on this assignment they hadn't done anything. And you point out that the problem is actually their own work/study/learning ethic and had they treated the assignment as an excellent opportunity to learn something interesting they would now be in good shape as quite a few students were.  More outrage came from the fact that their textbook doesn't provide an answer or even all of the information they need.  And this is the internet generation?  This isn't how they did things in my high school/junior college.  That's right, and you're not there any more.