Anon studies Organic Chemistry
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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.Add to this that exams need to be different each year to prevent cheating and you can easily get a few bad questions.
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In my uni, professors are expected to teach almost 220h/years of in person teaching (correcting doesn’t count, nor preparing), on top of “being a team playing” and doing quite some extra bureaucratic work. Obviously on top of doing their own research. Good teachers (professors that care about teaching quality) look like ghosts by the end of the academic year…
Each college does it differently. Some allow professors to choose research vs teaching, some require a fixed balance.
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I still think the ABCDF system sounds so... childish? But presented like that I can see how it makes sense.
I always thought about more absolute systems as more, eh, honest? More of an absolute value of our worth, but in truth it depends completely on our teachers, so it's not really any "truer" than the letter system. Just a different bias.
I'm glad there are so many interesting answers in this thread
Grades in the US are on a 4 point scale, with decimal values between:
- 3.5-4.0 - A
- 3.0-3.5 - B
- 2.5-3.0 - C
- 2.0-2.5 - D
- 1.0-2.0 - F
A "good" grade in a class is 3.5 or better, and 2.0 is usually barely passing. Letter grades are used through high school, and high school and college use the 4 point scale on transcripts, and people translate to the letter grades for talking with friends.
In assignments, you get a percent rating, with 60% being barely passing. There's a lot of granularity there.
Grading on a curve means the professor expects a certain distribution of scores, so of everyone scores poorly, the test is bad, so the scores are readjusted according to that expected curve. If people outperform, then there's no curve and you get the score you get.
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The curve means the class's scores is fit onto a bell curve. X% pass, Y% fail, etc all according to the predetermined standard bell curve. Doesn't matter if the class is full of Einsteins or dunces. If 30% is the highest mark in the class then that's an A+, and so on.
Usually if everyone gets high scores, a curve isn't used. The curve is only used if most people score poorly to make up for a bad exam or something.
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Grading on a curve is indeed that, and it should be criminalized because of how much it harms students
How does it harm students? A curve is only used if the grade distribution is below expectations. All it does is cover for a bad test or something.
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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 a pretty jaded way of thinking about it.
Universities don't exist to train you for a job, they exist to teach you how to learn. That's why you take a bunch of seemingly irrelevant classes, such as history, science, and English before you get into your specialization. Basically, half your education is unrelated to your specialty, and much of the rest is theoretical since you're expected to learn what you actually need in the field.
At the end of the day, most jobs don't require formal education and they're happy with practical experience. But most companies won't hire you wlfornyour first job without some indication you know what you're doing, and companies trust university degrees as that form of evidence. After your first couple jobs, they really don't care as much about your formal education.
There are other ways to get that experience, they're just a lot harder than going through formal education. I've hired self taught people that have been fantastic, it's just a lot harder to prove yourself.
That said, I wish there was a better way to tell kids what other options are. Everyone seems so focused on traditional university education that they don't consider alternatives.
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Yup, they have their TAs grade exams and grade on a curve so only a fixed percent passes.
I don't think the curve goes the other way tho. If everyone for above an 80 or so that doesn't mean 80 becomes a failing grade. Although tbh I'm not sure about that because I don't think I ever participated in an exam that had that happen.
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Usually if everyone gets high scores, a curve isn't used. The curve is only used if most people score poorly to make up for a bad exam or something.
You still "need" people to fail, so
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You still "need" people to fail, so
No, you don't. That's not how a curve works, the curve merely improves scores. If a curve would lower scores, it's not used.
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I don't think the curve goes the other way tho. If everyone for above an 80 or so that doesn't mean 80 becomes a failing grade. Although tbh I'm not sure about that because I don't think I ever participated in an exam that had that happen.
I've never seen or heard of that being a case.
The closest is test scores for admissions where the score is irrelevant and only the top X get in. But that's made apparent at the outset, whereas a curve is done after the fact if people do poorly.
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organic chem(for life science majors, the one for scientists is more harder) was brutal in my CC, surprisingly, and i found out they made stem courses extremely ivy league level on purpose, because a UC said so or they wont accept transfer students with an "easy grade" i think its bs to keep students perpetually in the school to continue paying for admission.
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My first introduction to this bullshit was calculus. Teacher bragged about only passing halve his students. Like my man... that ain't the brag you think it's is 1, 2 this is a fucking prereq for the vast vast majority of us!
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I don't think the curve goes the other way tho. If everyone for above an 80 or so that doesn't mean 80 becomes a failing grade. Although tbh I'm not sure about that because I don't think I ever participated in an exam that had that happen.
I have never once had an exam graded on a curve. But I've never done any post grad studies, although from what my PhD holding mom says, it's more of less just a pass/fail system.
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This is so fake that we managed to reach the {fake + gay} threshold without having to tap into the gay potential
"gay potential" sounds like the cutest physics term.
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No, you don't. That's not how a curve works, the curve merely improves scores. If a curve would lower scores, it's not used.
Not what they did for us.
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i think multiple-choice-exams* are even better because they're corrected by a machine by scanning the checkboxes and saying either "yes" or "no". it's 100% fair and also really effective.
* where applicable
Our exam system supports multiple choice and, indeed, collecting that part automatically. (We can still go through the boxes recognized as tick or blank en-masse to check for recognition mistakes.) However, they're only allowed to make up 20% of an exam according to university-wide rules.
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Each college does it differently. Some allow professors to choose research vs teaching, some require a fixed balance.
Never heard of being able to choose
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Never heard of being able to choose
Yup. Some have research-only professors, and some expect all professors to teach classes. It really depends on the university.
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Not what they did for us.
Do you have more details? Because I've never heard of a curve being used to hurt students in a class, only to help make up for a bad exam.
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Yup. Some have research-only professors, and some expect all professors to teach classes. It really depends on the university.
Ah, I misunderstood. Yeah, that’s common, but not a choice, they are different types of positions, with different fundings usually. You can’t switch between them
