<p>I’ll give you some extreme examples (but examples that I’ve seen in real life).</p>
<p>A class where a guy barely shows up to class, barely does any of the work, freely admits that he has no idea what the heck is going on, and even worse, doesn’t WANT to know what is going on in class. But he gets a final course grade of an A-. That’s grade inflation.</p>
<p>Another class where a girl studies day and night, spending hours and hours studying all the time, and demonstrates excellent command of the material. But she ends up with a final course grade of a C+. She doesn’t dare complain because she knows that her C+ was one of the better grades given out in the class, as she knows that plenty of other people worked hard too but got D’s and F’s. That’s grade deflation.</p>