curving grades in med school ..

[ghostdog]

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I'm not sure if every school does this, but there is a curve in some of my courses. usually it helps but hasn't affected me much. i know in undergrad the curves were often huge, but here, its minimial.

in one course however, i don;t know how it happened, i was actually curved down! that's never happened in my experience.

so i guess what im asking is, has that ever happened to you,
and why would that happen statistically? wouldn't the whole point be to pass the people who weren't passing, bumping everyone up ? (if its a typical bell shaped curve...)

just curious.

 

[ChubbyChaser]

I'm not sure if every school does this, but there is a curve in some of my courses. usually it helps but hasn't affected me much. i know in undergrad the curves were often huge, but here, its minimial.

in one course however, i don;t know how it happened, i was actually curved down! that's never happened in my experience.

so i guess what im asking is, has that ever happened to you,
and why would that happen statistically? wouldn't the whole point be to pass the people who weren't passing, bumping everyone up ? (if its a typical bell shaped curve...)

just curious.

I got curved down in undergrad occasionally..my econ teacher wanted the class average to be a C+..so he always curved the mean there, no matter what.

 

[TMP-SMX]

Depends. At my school the failing grade is based on the score distribution and there is a certain minimum score that is considered passing depending on the average of the previous year.

Either way as long as you pass your grade doesn't matter. Though your overall rank is more important. (Besides M3/M4 grades which are important).

 

[Mattabet]

has that ever happened to you,
and why would that happen statistically?

Never happened to me, nor did I ever do it when I was teaching (though I see where Chubby is coming from ^, that is such a math teacher thing to do). A curve up is based on the assumption that people ought to be able to pass the test (and do well), therefore, if everyone fails, the test was too hard and needed to be 'curved'. So this prof is playing the converse assumption, that if everyone breezed through the test, it was too easy; someone should fail or do poorly. It's just so mean in practice though...

wouldn't the whole point be to pass the people who weren't passing, bumping everyone up ? (if its a typical bell shaped curve...)

Apparently not. And if it is really an ideal bell curve, that very bottom should fail, right? I mean, someone is >2 SD down. But that ignores the fact that you're not in a randomly selected, infinitely sized math class. In real life, having everyone pass is just fine.

 

[RoadRunner17]

How big of a deal is it, really, as far as your class ranking goes? I mean with curved grades vs non-curved grades.. in theory non-curved grades mean that everyone could get honors, but I would imagine that in reality it doesn't work out to be a whole lot different than having curved grades.

 

[ChiDO]

No curved grades. Need 70% to pass (Simple 90/80/70 scale for A/B/C). Class rank is determined by percentage not letter grades. You could have a 4.0 and be ranked lower then someone with a 3.8.

By not curving, this promotes helpfulness from all students since your grade is only dependent on your performance.

The only type of help we get on exams is sometimes questions get double-keyed or dropped with credit.

 

[mildlyneurotic]

consider yourself lucky, i've been told stories of classes where 98% is a C. undergrad of course, but still

 

[Instatewaiter]

No curved grades. Need 70% to pass (Simple 90/80/70 scale for A/B/C). Class rank is determined by percentage not letter grades. You could have a 4.0 and be ranked lower then someone with a 3.8.

By not curving, this promotes helpfulness from all students since your grade is only dependent on your performance.

The only type of help we get on exams is sometimes questions get double-keyed or dropped with credit.

Same thing at my school's first 2 years.

Really made it a non-cutthroat environment.