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Do some professors deliberately hand out grades like candy? Is it right?
Sam
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I took a course on the works on Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. Pretty dry stuff, especially Richardson, whos rather obsessed with chastity as a virtue. Anyway, my papers all came back with comments like "POTENTIALLY SUGGESTIVE IDEAS THAT NEED FURTHER DEVELOPMENT" but they all still got B's. I got a B for the class even though I went in late a lot and barely ever spoke (although no one really spoke all semester, except this one 40 year old dude)
Anyway, has anyone ever had a prof like that? This is a guy who would call out people for leaving class and coming back 5 minutes later (which I never did btw, but it was obvious that some people liked their smoke breaks)
He gave me shit about being tardy, and generally talked like a professor that clamped down on people.
And I got a B. I don't know, in a way it's almost as though not giving me a C in a class I slacked off in is worse. than downgrading.
Shit I don't know, liberal arts is serious bizness I guess.
Anyway, has anyone ever had a prof like that? This is a guy who would call out people for leaving class and coming back 5 minutes later (which I never did btw, but it was obvious that some people liked their smoke breaks)
He gave me shit about being tardy, and generally talked like a professor that clamped down on people.
And I got a B. I don't know, in a way it's almost as though not giving me a C in a class I slacked off in is worse. than downgrading.
Shit I don't know, liberal arts is serious bizness I guess.
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I'd say the opposite is much more true. I would prefer if teachers handed out more low grades, right now any high grades I get look meaningless.
Now my only question would be how the rest of the class faired. If everyone got at least a B, then he is probably handing out grades.
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It's freshman psych, what do you expect? I had tests in my first physics course where the averages were down around 50-60% or lower.
15/15.5 is 97% which is an A.
And as IreneDAdler says, this is only true for undergraduates. For graduate students, a B is usually a sign that you're a terrible, horrible person that no one likes.
Obviously it isn't a math teacher...
I just said that I took it in my Freshman year, not that it was Freshman Psych. At my school it's PSY 402, basically the highest level required course for a Bachelors Degree in Psychology at my University. So yeah, grade inflation.
Of course, this can all be explained by LOL PSYCHOLOGY IS EASY LIBERAL ARTS
But that lowers all grades, so if you got a 13.5, then it would have been 90% out of 15, but it's 87% out of 15.5, so you get a B when you normally would have gotten an A.
I was thinking more along the lines of wow, did those failing kids just never go to class after the first day, because there aren't any C's. How'd you get everyone's grades anyway?
No you are.
So, in answer to the question in the title--sometimes, and depends.
It depends a lot on the department. My school's Art History department is fucking notorious. In any course, the average scores for the midterms hover around 65%. They always make the final a little easier or grade it like less of a douchebag, though.
Edit- I also got stuck with a C in an English course I worked considerably harder on. It was Shakespeare and we had to base our papers around shit people wrote in journals (as in find a journal article interesting enough to base a paper on)
I was pulling a B all semester, but for the final paper, I was sick of all the rewriting (I was on my 4rth rewrite of a 15 pager at that point) and just handed it in. I guess I must not have done too well on the final exam either, because I got a C. Only time I ever got less than an A or B in English.
Do they give most students C's and D's, or do they just curve the final grade such that the 65% average becomes a B? I'm sure many of the engineering/science majors around here can tell stories of classes where 60% was curved up to an A.
She posted all of the grades in an excel file on her website, with student names hidden.
I pulled a C+ out of a class with a 18% final grade.
And people wonder why no one has a 3.0 GPA.
It doesn't go below zero, people!
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I was one of them, but the fact that they grade so ridiculously for a class that has very elementary work really pissed me off. My buddy had lab reports that were as good or better than mine every week and he ended up with a B in the class. He gets crazy A++ type grades on his lab reports that he does real research work for. When he is working with his professors and doing upper level lab work he gets the highest marks but when he did menial "test that gravity still works" type experiments in our physics lab he got totally shafted on his grades.
And sometimes vary widely between teachers.
I always thought it was a little unfair how sometimes passing or failing a class can be luck of the draw on what teacher you get. Case in point, this semester my friend and are I taking statistics but under different teachers.
A bout three months in my friend was about 7 chapters ahead of me, and on his 4th test while I was getting read to take my second. His teacher rushed through the book and gave practically no examples or help to the students, while mine went at a nice easy pace and explained everything. My friend's teacher actually finished the book and the semester isn't even over yet, and now they are just reviewing stuff.
The teacher was one of those unconventional types. Didn't believe in giving students exams to test their knowledge and making them memorize everything and then forget it afterwards. Cool, I guess. Unfortunately, his 'techniques' didn't help me learn much either, as not only was the class pretty self-explanatory, but the take home test you gave us to complete over spring break seemed more like you were too lazy to really think up anything beyond the usual alternatives to the standard test.
That said, the guy was pretty nice and now I feel kind of bad for talking shit about him in an internet forum.
I also had this accounting teach who, in earlier classes, would make the homework grade into this ridiculously inflated number. Worth more than one test (test = 100 points, all homework = 120 points). This might not seem weird enough, but keep in mind that she would take up 4 homeworks over the semester and drop the lowest one. She also graded them for completion. So basically, you could get D's or C's on the tests and still come out with a B in the class. The college also usually has classes enforce an attendance policy, but one of my friends missed at least 15 days and she never did anything about it.
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I've heard of classes that grade on an actual curve, like, using a statistical bell curve and the 68-95-99.7 rule. It would really suck to be grade like that, but apparently it gets done for really impacted majors sometimes.
I actually got a 100% on a poetry analysis paper once, and the only comments were along the lines of "this is exactly right." The best part is, I wrote it in about 45 minutes right before class. Apparently I have some kind of psychic insight into the mind of Keats.
I had a physics teach one semester who curved ridiculously. I think I averaged about a 75 on all the tests (which were the only grades) and I got an A. I think he once said something along the lines of "as long as you have above a 50, you pass." Granted, this was Intro to Physics, so I doubt he would be the same in upper-level courses when you're dealing with relativity and all that fun stuff.
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For example my World Politics class. The prof my friend had designed a course with over 1000 points. The prof I had designed a course with 12 points. The mid term, the final, and two "point opportunities" which were just pop exams.
I got a B
I don't know whether it was because he had a quota to fulfill, or because the professor was a senile old man
The other reason I like strong curves (as in a 60% or less = A curve) is that the questions aren't a matter of just memorizing notes, but instead applying what the prof covered in class to unfamiliar territory with the expectation that even the best students won't get it half the time. To me, the application of knowledge is much more important than the retention of it.
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In the end, if the grade inflation/deflation is standard across schools (and it seems to be, from what I can tell), it doesn't much matter. Most employers don't care much about GPA, they just want someone who did the work, seems professional, and interviews well. Those that do care, and prospective grad schools, will understand what the grading trends are and view your grades accordingly. It all works out in the end.
What's both frustrating and unfair is those teachers who willfully buck the trend to make some sort of point. Yeah, yeah, we get that you think C should be the average grade. It's nice that you think nobody should ever get an A unless he's fucking Stephen Hawking. Huzzah. Problem is, nobody is going to take the time to research your particular grading habits when they look at my transcripts, fucko. All they'll see is that my department views B as an average grade, and I got a C in yours, which may as well be a D as far as they're concerned. So yay, you made your point, and now people are going to disregard me as an applicant because of your principles. Congratulations.
Another, more minor, problem is when different departments or programs have very different grading regimes. When I was in grad school, I never took an undergrad course for credit. Never, even if I figured I'd probably ace it. Because I wasn't going to risk getting a B as a result of a different grading system and dropping my GPA. Systems like that really discourage students from taking classes outside their disciplines, which doesn't exactly make for a well-rounded student body.
It doesn't help in courses like Art History, where grading is subjective even after you've had to deal with memorizing 50 images with dates and medium. I guess they need to guarantee that that the majority of the class gets C's, and the best way to do that is to put the majority of the class in a position where they have to fight for a C near the final, and then give it to most of them.
Personally I think my Art HIstory department is like that because A) It's mostly comprised of people studying renaissance church architechture, and B)It's traditionally seen as a springboard into law school, and said renaissance scholars don't like people who just want to take enjoyable courses and study Jackson Pollock to get their GPA up because Art History is serious bizness.
None of the humanities departments ever curve anything though.
Did he actually compare everyones' grades together? I've taken courses with grad students and PhD's before, and they were always graded separately, sometimes on different criteria.
These types of things vary between classes and professors though. I was talking with my advisor today about a class I am taking, and she teaches. It is a pretty difficult class, and probably the most demanding in the Psychology curriculum at my school. She told me that because of the difficulty and amount of work required for the class, they rarely fail anyone unless they are really really struggling, or don't do any work in the class. I thought that was interesting because your final grade is based on your grades throughout the term. Technically someone could skip every class, but still do all the work and ace all the tests, and get an 'A'. right?
Man, I'm pretty sure this is just a show off thread.
I also got a B in an English class where I did less than half of the classwork, skipped a paper, and had a lot of absences. To be honest though I think she was just lenient because I was one of three people that weren't completely retarded.
Also I hate art history, its required for my major (graphic design) and it is purposefully one of the most painful grading and testing setups for a mostly unremarkable class. However I have had a few other art courses where the teacher was very easy based upon whether you put in the effort and work and not the usual subjective arbitrary grading setup.
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