<p>Just wondering- How should grading be curved in high school classes? </p>
<li>+x points, to everyone, regardless of performance</li>
<li>+ x% of raw score … preference to high-scorers</li>
<li>scaling that gives more extra points to low-scorers than to high-scorers</li>
</ol>
<p>Because in my calculus class, my teacher used method 3. As a result, some people got a 35 point curve, and I got a 3 point curve (95 to a 98).</p>
<p>You’re whining about ‘only’ a 3 point curve, when you already had a 95? Get a life!</p>
<p>To answer your question though, most teachers I have had use a bell curve (top 15% get As, following 25% gets Bs, etc.).</p>
<p>we don’t really curve much, a point here, a point there, that’s about it (with the exception of exams). Teachers usually curve to get a 75 exam average. there are 2 methods. One the mathematic, bell curve-ish way (not exactly a bell curve, but same idea) second is the you add x number of points to the top grade to give them a perfect score and everyone gets the number of points. The first way is used by mostly science/math teachers and social studies/english teachers tend to use the second way</p>
<p>the only classes that are curved at my school are AP bio and AP physics. mostly because the tests are insanely hard, including stuff we didn’t necessarily cover in class, but that he hoped we might infer, a lot of questions that are very difficult, and a lot of essays or problems that are long and complicated. so the average score on our test is usually around 60%. so that not everyone is failing, the teacher uses method # 1, and i think its pretty fair. the students that study and work hard usually end up with higher grades, etc.</p>
<p>No curving at my school. You get what you get.</p>
<p>neither at mine</p>
<p>Most of my teachers do not curve at all. My freshman biology teacher once who used a variation of method 1. </p>
<p>Let x=the median test score of the class.
Let y=her desired median score (usually 75, I think)</p>
<p>If x<y, add (y-x) points to every test grade.</p>
<p>Also, if you did all of your class work she would let you retake and average the two grades.</p>
<p>It worked out great until I figured out the class could strategically fail to ensure every person passed.</p>
<p>Excerpt from my blog:
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<p>our ap bio exam was curved a lot since it was meant as a “practice ap test” so it was super hard, the highest grade w/o curve was an 82, so it was a 16 pt. curve</p>
<p>Yeah, hamster, that would work. Except for the fact that schools (well, mine at least) have the best teachers teach AP courses. They are not stupid. They WILL realize that half the class got zeroes-especially if the tests were left blank!<br>
But, what if…</p>
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<p>Usually we only got a few points, if any.</p>
<p>My math was just a theory for people to laugh about. In reality, the theory would fall apart because it assumes (1) the instructor would not change the policy in reaction to this abuse and (2) that everyone plays his or her role properly every time. If one person got confused about what they were supposed to do they could stick half the class with 0’s.</p>