are most college classes curved?

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curved in your favor, as in whoevers highest score = 100% on the exam? just curious.

 

[Megalofyia]

None of my classes have ever been curved. Although I would have liked it.

 

[An Yong]

in my experience, classes that are exceptionally large (say 50+) tend to be curved, while classes that are small (less than 20) tend not to be curved.

I've never actually had a class where highest grade on a test = 100. From talking to some of my professors that did curve (kind of a misnomer, because they didn't really use statistics to produce a normal curve), instead they usually just plot everyone's grades then determine grade break-off points based on how everyone clusters (students grades tend to cluster into groups).

 

[stoic]

The above post is pretty much right on.

Some professors curve, some don't. Unless the university has a standard curve policy, then it's really up in the air.

 

[generic]

I agree...I've had big bio classes curved that way (highest grade-->100%), as well as curved so that the mean was, say, 70 (in which case you can get >100), and I'm in classes now that aren't curved. You need >90 to get an A. I think as they get harder and smaller the curves get less generous...

 

[Medikit]

I only had curving in my lower division classes. All of my upper division classes have been by the grade. But I think this is largely because I go to such a small school.

 

[45408]

I've never had a class get Bell curved, but I've had things boosted in my favor, yes.

 

[Fermata]

It depends entirely on the teacher most of the time.

 

[ShyRem]

Curved? Does that even exist in a college grading scale? I've never had a curved exam, I have had plenty of exams where the highest grade on the exam WAS 100% (and a couple of times it was even me! 🙂 ). I HAVE had classes where EVERYONE failed the exam. One memorable chemistry exam where the highest grade was 42%. And, no, the grade was not dropped, we were not given a make up exam. But we all worked a heck of a lot harder from then on out.

Even more memorable, advanced calculus homework - turn in 15 pages of proofs and get a ZERO score. High on one of those exams was 62% as I recall.

 

[Fermata]

Curved? Does that even exist in a college grading scale? I've never had a curved exam, I have had plenty of exams where the highest grade on the exam WAS 100% (and a couple of times it was even me! 🙂 ). I HAVE had classes where EVERYONE failed the exam. One memorable chemistry exam where the highest grade was 42%. And, no, the grade was not dropped, we were not given a make up exam. But we all worked a heck of a lot harder from then on out.

Even more memorable, advanced calculus homework - turn in 15 pages of proofs and get a ZERO score. High on one of those exams was 62% as I recall.

There are some engineering courses here where the highest final grade in the class is in the 50%-60% range. It has to be curved.

Then again, old school engineering teachers tend to embrace this kind of thing.....

 

[leiface]

wow, every single one of my classes for pre-med and most of all of my major classes (biochem) are all curved. O.O Our profs tend to give out exceptionally difficult exams so i guess it helps most of the time, though I do recall that on one curved orgo exam, a 92% on the exam was curved to a B, how f-cked up is that? If you know your stuff, you know your stuff...but apparently the prof didn't think so.

 

[drguy22]

wow, every single one of my classes for pre-med and most of all of my major classes (biochem) are all curved. O.O Our profs tend to give out exceptionally difficult exams so i guess it helps most of the time, though I do recall that on one curved orgo exam, a 92% on the exam was curved to a B, how f-cked up is that? If you know your stuff, you know your stuff...but apparently the prof didn't think so.

hmm..my biochem was not curved...organic chem...there is a preset curve where an 80=A, 60=B and soo on.

 

[txguy]

My biochem class is not curved either. At least one advantage is that everyone is encouraged to help each other out--maybe a little taste of a medical school atmosphere? 👍

-tx

 

[MEG@COOL]

I have had classes curve by different methods, but also many dont at all.

 

[Tim Haas]

I've had one engineering class last year, that the teacher said she'd curve us a full letter grade at the end of the quarter, then it comes...and she doesn't curve us. So that was stupid.

 

[Fermata]

I've had one engineering class last year, that the teacher said she'd curve us a full letter grade at the end of the quarter, then it comes...and she doesn't curve us. So that was stupid.

Don't you hate it when you get owned by the professor? 😀

Luckily, I've been able to get professors who grade very fairly.

There were some in HS, however, that were different....

But that's in the past........and besides.....GPA wasn't that important to me back then.

 

[nockamura]

I've never had a bell curve, more like the top 15% get A's, etc. As far as I know, all BCPM classes have been curved to some extent and all nonscience classes have been uncurved. At UCSD, if a certain percentage of students fail or don't get A's, I think the prof/lecturer is put on probation. I've had classes where the top 2 scores were averaged then those became 100%.

 

[Dr. Starostik]

I'm a freshman in a very large state university and all of my classes are curved, but that's because I happen to have teachers that curve. There are plenty of profs who don't curve.