Anon studies Organic Chemistry
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I remember that my statistics professor was so smug about grading on a curve because it was using statistics. It was also a class that he gloated about as a class where you "needed an a" if you wanted to get into grad school. In other words, the asshole was making sure only a certain number of people even had a chance to get into the graduate programs. It was rumored that he even ran tests on students in the different labs, telling the grad students teaching the labs to teach in certain ways and seeing if there were any differences. Wouldn't put it past him.
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This is a certified this totally happened moment
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This probably didn't actually happen, but I did have a physics class in college where we had an exam where the highest score was 35%, so it was graded on an absurd curve
Grading on a curve is always absurd to me: it's a cop out for teachers who don't know how to set curriculum/exams properly and demeans the education process.
Should just be
- here's a list of things you learn in this class
- you demonstrate understanding and skill over about 60% of that list
- you get a grade of 60%
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Grading on a curve is always absurd to me: it's a cop out for teachers who don't know how to set curriculum/exams properly and demeans the education process.
Should just be
- here's a list of things you learn in this class
- you demonstrate understanding and skill over about 60% of that list
- you get a grade of 60%
While I mostly agree with you, the grading on a curve idea comes from two factors
On one hand, the idea that knowing some topics very well can absolve you from knowing other topics at a sufficient level. On the other, people making the exercises for the exams are experts and can easily overlook the hidden difficulties of an exercise. So it happens way too often that a professor would think “this exercise is super easy” and miss that it uses concepts from other courses the students are not super familiar yet. -
My calc I class in college had a 23% average on the first exam. Later ones made it into the high 30%s. The professor was terrible, but since I had already taken calc in high school and he graded on a curve it was a breeze.
The main problem was that he would test for the stuff we had not covered yet because he "wanted people to work ahead."
“wanted people to work ahead”
Ah yes “not fucking doing my job that people are taking loans out for and pay off for years to come”
Fuck that “professor.” A college degree is an overpriced commodity and they are falsely charging students by not teaching them the course
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While I mostly agree with you, the grading on a curve idea comes from two factors
On one hand, the idea that knowing some topics very well can absolve you from knowing other topics at a sufficient level. On the other, people making the exercises for the exams are experts and can easily overlook the hidden difficulties of an exercise. So it happens way too often that a professor would think “this exercise is super easy” and miss that it uses concepts from other courses the students are not super familiar yet.A lot of professors are overworked with classes and programs too. One of my girlfriends uas a professor for anatomy who teaches two full college courses before going to her massage school to teach anatomy. She says you can tell that the professor isn't really there mentally. Sge never actually prepares for the courses she's supposed to be teaching, but you can tell us just from exhaustion. I wonder how many are like that and just forget what coursework they're currently preparing for others.
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I keep reading about people grading on a curve and I still can't grasp what that means. Do those teachers have like a set number of A B C, or whatever, they can give out? And if they've run out of A then you get a B? And if the B run out you get a C and so on?
That seems a completely intellectually bankrupt practice! If you don't want more than X people passing, then just grade people with percentages and let only the first X highest through and that's it, but don't lie with fake grades! How insane... -
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gay: anon was fucked by the professor
fake: anon left the house
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I keep reading about people grading on a curve and I still can't grasp what that means. Do those teachers have like a set number of A B C, or whatever, they can give out? And if they've run out of A then you get a B? And if the B run out you get a C and so on?
That seems a completely intellectually bankrupt practice! If you don't want more than X people passing, then just grade people with percentages and let only the first X highest through and that's it, but don't lie with fake grades! How insane...Wait until you hear that universities are just literal paywalls to seperate social classes so poor people can’t get good jobs that once were apprenticeships.
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My calc I class in college had a 23% average on the first exam. Later ones made it into the high 30%s. The professor was terrible, but since I had already taken calc in high school and he graded on a curve it was a breeze.
The main problem was that he would test for the stuff we had not covered yet because he "wanted people to work ahead."
It's fine to give points for "extra work", but the regular work should give you a passing grade at least. The extra work should maybe give you the difference between a 6 or an 8.
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Wait until you hear that universities are just literal paywalls to seperate social classes so poor people can’t get good jobs that once were apprenticeships.
That's not fair, they're also debt slavery scams where they sell false hope to people. They even have entire military boot camp lite night release prisons where they brainwash you into going
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I have had teachers try to grade on a strict bell curve distribution, but if your goal as a school is to accept promising talent then train them better you should expect your students to fall within a part of a bell curve and not spread across the whole damn thing.
Sorry, can't pass you cause my morals oblige me to give 2 As, and 2Fs, and I'm all out of everything but FS (no matter how many points you were away from someone with a better final grade).
IfIf the class is graded on the curve and you're on the bottom half of the curve you should get a refund
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I love the correction system we have at my university. All the exams are pseudonymized with a sticker you receive during the exam and scanned after completion. About 10 to 30 people are involved in correcting the exams for one course. We don't know who the exams belong to as we only see the scanned version on our tablet or computer. Each task is corrected by a different set of people. We can select to see only a single task or subtask to streamline the process of correction, too. Furthermore, all the tasks are checked twice independently. Once done, the system can assign the exams back to the students. I love how it's fair and "anonymous" by design.
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This post doesn't pass peer review
If the story was about peer review it would probably be more believable. No way a professor does that to a fee paying student less still admits it to them. But do it to a competing prof where they are anonymous... Much more tempting.
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Wait until you hear that universities are just literal paywalls to seperate social classes so poor people can’t get good jobs that once were apprenticeships.
I mean, not the whole world is the US. Plus, at this point you'll get a better paying job if you go into trades.
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While I mostly agree with you, the grading on a curve idea comes from two factors
On one hand, the idea that knowing some topics very well can absolve you from knowing other topics at a sufficient level. On the other, people making the exercises for the exams are experts and can easily overlook the hidden difficulties of an exercise. So it happens way too often that a professor would think “this exercise is super easy” and miss that it uses concepts from other courses the students are not super familiar yet.On the first point I agree. In my country, 40-50% is a pass usually and that seems crazy for its own reasons. But a curve can make that worse just as easily as it can make it better. The education system I work in is now introducing the idea that not only do you need to hit 50% to pass, you also have to show a competency with every learning outcome on the curriculum. We'll see how it goes. My subject areas haven't been hit yet.
The second point is essentially what I said, it's a cop out for a teacher who is bad at setting exams. Easily fixed by some QA and/or collaboration. At least run it by a TA. Also they should read the curriculum before writing an assessment.
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This probably didn't actually happen, but I did have a physics class in college where we had an exam where the highest score was 35%, so it was graded on an absurd curve
That seems so low that it makes the benefit of the class dubious. Can you really say you're making good use of the students' time when it's clear none of them are understanding the material? Maybe the material needs to be broken up into more digestible chunks.
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That seems so low that it makes the benefit of the class dubious. Can you really say you're making good use of the students' time when it's clear none of them are understanding the material? Maybe the material needs to be broken up into more digestible chunks.
It's also possible to just write a bad question/exam and recognize you need to do better as a professor.
I had a physics professor who graded himself on whether or not he wrote/taught well by the grade distribution. He was always transparent about it and had benchmarks of how it went previous years. He was also one of the most sought after professors.
I also had s philosophy class where the best grade over the entire semester was a 30 and the professor was like yeah this is just expected. You get an A. This guy obviously derived enjoyment from not being a good teacher and for humiliating his students that they really knew nothing about philosophy. That guy sucked.
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I keep reading about people grading on a curve and I still can't grasp what that means. Do those teachers have like a set number of A B C, or whatever, they can give out? And if they've run out of A then you get a B? And if the B run out you get a C and so on?
That seems a completely intellectually bankrupt practice! If you don't want more than X people passing, then just grade people with percentages and let only the first X highest through and that's it, but don't lie with fake grades! How insane...In Delft, corrections of the curve are only ever used upwards, in case the passing rate is very low. If everyone completes the test without mistakes everyone gets a 10.
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Wait until you hear that universities are just literal paywalls to seperate social classes so poor people can’t get good jobs that once were apprenticeships.
I assure you that's not how it works in Europe. Nowhere near as bad as the US, in any case.
I guess that's what happens when education is deeply ingrained in the culture.
