Grading Curve .. .just say yes or no for each!

IlliniJBravoEcho
Fri, 12 Aug 2005 23:25:26 +0000

The biggest thing about a curve is always managing to stay above the average. If you are ten points above the average there is a good chance for a B or above. It is just the unpredictability of what the average is going to be that can be annoying. In my first semester of accelerated gen chem the average test score change from 70% on exam 1 to 35% on exam 2. So just try to know more than your friends and stay in what would be an A on the exams and quizzes and you’re bound to get a good grade. When I go into tests I just shoot for as high as I can b/c there is just not set way to predict your grades for certain at almost anytime.

The best classes for that are huge classes that curve but have a set scale like physics or cs classes at my school. They tell you what you need to get an A but they curve exams that are worth 120 pts to 100 pt tests. So I may have gotten 93/120 on exam 3 but that is a 91% after the curve. Not bad but still even with set grading scales it can be hard due to individual test curves and huge final exams.

But a set grading scale doesn’t mean too much if the final exam is worth a lot, I mean for my CS class I had 100%+ of the points available before the final exam. Good you’d think, don’t have study that hard for the final. Well, the final was worth 50% of the grade. Even though it was 350 pts out of 700, I still had to miss 35 points to get lower than an A+. I wasn’t too scared but hey I still studied hard enough to insure that A+. I better do the work to deserve it, if I want to get it that bad right?