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<p>Seems highly unlikely that professors would purposely make it so 10% of the class always fails regardless of the performance of the class as a whole. What it could have been were [now outdated] statistics of perhaps of what the grade distribution ended up being for a particular semester of general chemistry. General chemistry has a median grade of B/B- at Cornell (nowadays at least).</p>
<p>Students aren’t so competitive that they sabotage each others experiments, it isn’t even worth the risk of possibly getting a F in the class if caught. With the class having over 500 students, it is a pointless exercise to purposely not help others because you think it will hurt the curve. From my experience people do help other students (pre-meds included).</p>
<p>Anyways on the topic at hand, there is rampant grade inflation, not deflation at Cornell. So grading should be the least of your worries.</p>