Undergrad grading curves, possible biases against certain students

[Entei]

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I guess I'm just used to the perspective that a test should measure how much the individual student knows and not guage how he or she compares to the rest of his or her classmates. I can see where that's useful, but that's what the MCAT is for. I'm just glad I didn't have to put up with that at my small school. They don't use this cockamamy grading system in med school, do they?

 

[Destroy364]

Originally posted by Entei
I guess I'm just used to the perspective that a test should measure how much the individual student knows and not guage how he or she compares to the rest of his or her classmates.

What you're saying doesn't quite make sense. The professor gives you a hard test, so that DOESN'T test how well you know the material? I think it does both...tests how much students know and enables you to compare them and get a nice curve. It's not that they throw stuff at you they haven't taught...its more along the lines of applying your knowledge in a new situation and whatnot. Ok enough rambling... I guess after taking 2 years of prereq's like this i've grown used to this kind of grading system.

 

[relatively prime]

Ok... this may sound strange, but... higher level courses are HARDER than lower level courses. It's much harder to prove that a Euclidean Domain is a Principle Ideal Domain than it is to solve x^2 - 4 = 8.

Non traditional students should know what they're getting into when they try to go back to college. They should brush up their math before starting if the need too. For people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds... well, it's not fair... but that's why most schools have tutors. Once they get past the first class or two they should be caught up.

 

[relatively prime]

Originally posted by Entei
I guess I'm just used to the perspective that a test should measure how much the individual student knows and not guage how he or she compares to the rest of his or her classmates. I can see where that's useful, but that's what the MCAT is for. I'm just glad I didn't have to put up with that at my small school. They don't use this cockamamy grading system in med school, do they?

"How much the individual student" knows IS relative. So, how would you gauge how much a student knows if not against how much the other students know? Do you think there should be a standard A, B, C, and D grade so that no matter what the cutoffs are always the same... even if the class average is a 40%?! That hardly seems fair. What kind of radical grading system are you proposing here?

The nontrads and poorer students in your classes are getting lower grades because they know less... they ARE being graded on how much they know. There's nothing wrong with the grading system... rather there's a problem with how well prepared they are for the class. You seem to want to fix the result of the problem rather than the problem itself.

 

[Entei]

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm not even proposing a grading system. I'm telling you about how it's done in my school and several others. The perspective that I am familiar with is that the professor is responsible for teaching you the material in the course, and the exam is supposed to be a measure of your understanding of that material. If no one can get a legitimate A on the exam, then that's a sign that something has gone wrong. I can understand that a professor wants to make an exam challenging, but there should be no reason why no one can score above a 50 on an undergraduate exam unless the class really was not taught properly the first time around or the professor just wants to be a hard*** and give a stupidly hard exam.

Again, this is just my understanding from my experience of attending a small school. In the final analysis, the two systems aren't really that different. I just don't see why we have to expect students to get 50s instead of 90s on exams. In the end, a student with the 50 and a curve and a student with a 90 without the curve are still going to end up with an A, but I think if I was in a situation where I could not expect to score higher than 50% on an exam, I would be a little demoralized after awhile. I dunno. I guess I was just lucky to have escaped this crazy kind of system, since it seems like this is what is in effect at a majority of schools. I'm just glad I'm done with undergrad then!

 

[Ernham]

Well, going on merely word of mouth and empirical evidence, it appears that most students find part 2 and 3 of the calc series significantly more easy than calc 1; however, the grading curve appears to remain fairly homogenous throughout all the upper division math(anything above calc 1 being considered upper.) It all further reaffirms my early assumption, but casual AND biased sampling makes a fairly weak collection of data. It is still interesting, though.

 

[Cerberus]

i just happened upon this thread and have to say....

Ernham, you are an absolute *****. Do me a favor and take College Algebra and then take Real Analysis and tell me which one is harder to make an A in.

 

[Ernham]

"i just happened upon this thread and have to say....

Ernham, you are an absolute *****."

You better hope your 1000s of posts here confers some type of immunization to the ban stick, because this is clearly an unprovoked attack for no reason.

A few verbal attacks are a great way to give your post some real validity.

"Do me a favor and take College Algebra and then take Real Analysis and tell me which one is harder to make an A in."

Why would I bother? I wasn't interested in comparing such classes with algebra. Pre-calc, algebra, and calc 1 were the only classes I was primarily interested in.

 

[trubluwolv]

i'm not sure why you're even concerned about pre-calc and algebra because i don't really see their relevance to this forum.
if you're into math and learning for the sake of learning, good for you.

but relative to pre-med requirements and med school admissions, why are you spending so much time trying to disentangle the curving discrepencies in one math dept at one school? this seems like an awful waste of time, doesn't it?

 

[drkingdingaling]

I have recently collected data that has allowed me to come to the conclusion that Ernham is a state of the art, bonified, one of a kind pee pee head.

 

[e-spin]

Oh NOOOO!!! This thread is back?!?!

Ugh. I have grown tired Ernham's debates in general. Geesh! Just tell him what he wants to hear and end this already!! Tell him, " YOU ARE RIGHT."

Spin😀 😀