Definitely not normal at my school. Here you fail one test you retake that test during the summer, if you pass there is no change on your record, only the P. If you fail 2 tests (or don't pass your summer exam), you remediate the entire year. Its a big deal and it only happens to a handful of people. Usually when that happens the students had some intense personal issues.
Yeah, about the same at my school as far as I know. Our exam averages have been 75-85, SD 7-10. So the few who are failing are getting scores in the low 60's. This has been only maybe 2-3 people per block (out of 140) and we can also remediate a block over the summer without having to redo a whole year. This is our first block that has had only 1 comprehensive exam, though - so far we've had longer blocks so we've had a midterm and a final every 3-4 weeks. But I think most people have figured out how much studying they need to do to get into the P range now that we're halfway through the year, and our lecturers have been giving out some practice problems for this block so we have an idea of what to expect. A few profs in other blocks have put a sample problem at the end of each of their lectures, too.
We get ppts, recordings, and LOs for every lecture, about 5-10/lecture, ends up being around 200 per exam. I think they're pretty useful and I know the lecturers do try and make them match the lecture and exam content, though I personally haven't been using them to focus my study; just been learning as much from the lectures as possible. I'm told our 2nd years can have a lot more objectives per lecture (~50), but it's also because they form a basis for pulling potential NBME questions that they get tested with.
OP - I hope you make some progress talking to your deans. Alternately, do you have any student leaders who can take the concerns of the class to administration? At our school thankfully they're pretty receptive to student feedback, and my impression is that they want us to succeed. When people have come close to failing their midterms, our deans have immediately contacted them to help them find the resources they need.
Food for thought - If you're at a top school, why would they be recruiting students just to try and fail them out? Good students who are successful later in their careers make a good advertisement for that school; students who are bitter and speak ill of the school aren't going to attract top candidates in the future. And education is an investment for both parties - I know it feels like we pay a lot for medical education, but the time and money educational institutions need to spend to produce graduates is a lot, too. If for some reason your school doesn't have similar views on this, do your best to convince them of such!
