Anon studies Organic Chemistry
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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
We did it, Lemmy!
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You forgot to fuck the professor.
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Dean time!
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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...At my uni they'd take the highest grade of the class and reset that as the max points and grade from there.
So if max points on an exam was 120 and no-one scored higher then an 85, then an 85 would be an A, 75 a B, etc.
I'm a mediocre student but an amazing test taker and used to compete on math teams. So some of the math heavy engineering courses I would get perfect exam scores and sometimes the prof would ignore me as the highest grade. I was frustrated at first because my A didn't mean the same as someone's but I realized later it was to stop me from getting beat up by a bunch of 30 yo guys.
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At my uni they'd take the highest grade of the class and reset that as the max points and grade from there.
So if max points on an exam was 120 and no-one scored higher then an 85, then an 85 would be an A, 75 a B, etc.
I'm a mediocre student but an amazing test taker and used to compete on math teams. So some of the math heavy engineering courses I would get perfect exam scores and sometimes the prof would ignore me as the highest grade. I was frustrated at first because my A didn't mean the same as someone's but I realized later it was to stop me from getting beat up by a bunch of 30 yo guys.
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
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Professors don't work like that.
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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.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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
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Professors don't work like that.
They do in conservatives' anti-intellectual fantasies
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In early 2010s I had a TA give me an A without grading. When I confronted him he said "Why do you care, you know you're getting an A anyways?" Lol. He got reprimanded though.
Everyone I know who's ever done uni marking was getting paid a pittance and expected to work at an extremely fast rate.. I kinda understand this
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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
Multiple choice often fails to allow full demonstration of understanding, and especially at college level, that matters much more.
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Um, the text is green, so it is clearly the unvarnished truth
Clearly unvarnished. Left exposed to the elements to corrode
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Professors don't work like that.
Yup, they have their TAs grade exams and grade on a curve so only a fixed percent passes.
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I was a physics major, and the whole department was famous for this. I think it's just lazy. They don't make the test for what they actually taught, they just throw shit against the wall and see what sticks.
That's pretty common for math heavy classes, the tests are ridiculous and they grade on a curve.
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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.
Eh, I had a physics class like this and the test questions had so many moving pieces that missing one would give you the wrong answer, even if you remembered all the formulas and otherwise did the problem correctly. So getting 1/4 right was actually pretty good in the stressful environment of the testing center. And there were only like 4 problems anyway, and you'd get partial credit, so a 30-40% meant you probably got one right and had the right approach on the others. You also don't get full credit unless you show all your work, so even a savant probably wouldn't get 100%.
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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 threadGrades 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.
