<p>I don’t think that’s as obvious as you think. Course exams don’t exist to test your abilities in the career you think you’ll have, because college isn’t simply a glorified trade school. The idea is that you like to learn things, regardless of whether or not you will go on to directly use them in your job. And if the professor constructs an exam where the person who did an average job learning will get 50%, what is wrong with that?</p>