What do you think about Grading on a Curve? (universities, degree, school)

[BradPiff]

I'm interested in people's opinions on this

Grading on a curve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ginge McFantaPants]

Depends. For quizzes and tests I like it because I'm very competitive in school and bring my A game. But for something creative like an essay, I wanted to evaluated on my own merit and the contents of my work, not based on how well it stacks up against someone else's essay.

[tlarnla]

I don't like it.

When students are graded on a curve, their grades depend on their classmates. An average student would get poor grades if their class is filled with gifted students, and excellent grades if the class is filled with lazy students. A child should be graded by their own work, not by the work of their classmates.

I suppose that could also cause kids to hate smart classmates that bring the curve up. I can't help but wonder if the popularity of grading on a curve is what started the bullying of smart kids. My mom says that smart kids were popular when she was a kid, but now they are picked on by classmates.

Japanese schools don't use a curve. They give kids homework assignments and tests that add up to 100 points, and score them according to how many they got right. Smart kids are popular in Japanese schools, which provides more motive for kids to get good grades.

[zthatzmanz28]

It sux. How do we justify one student with a 95% having an "A" and the other with a 93% having a "C"??

If a student knows 90% of the material it is an "A" and 92% is an "A" and 20% is FAILING...

[nana053]

I don't like grades at all, but grading on a curve is worse because it sets students against one another when they should only be comparing what they learned rather than how they did relative to others.

[Jay100]

Hate the curve. Only time an A student doing A level work can receive C's, D's and F's.

[MJ7]

The students are only as good as the instructor teaches, some instructors need curves because they can't teach the material very well, again one of the reasons why education lacks. The big reason education is behind is because kids don't all learn the same, it's strictly individual and the current system doesn't cater to that.

[Ivorytickler]

Curves should only be used when there is something wrong with the test or when the test was intended to be too hard (like in the case of tests given by AP teachers. Making the test too hard helps prepare kids to take the real AP test.). If a curve has to be applied to a test that wasn't intended to be too hard the test should be fixed.

I don't curve my tests at all. I have in the past. I've fixed the errors. I test what I want my students to learn and don't need to curve my tests because I teach what I want them to learn. Over the years I've figured out better ways to teach what I want them to learn. I'm able to bring my A game now. I missed a few over the years but not now. I still get a little better each year now but for the most part I have it figured out. I'd rather see retakes on tests that have low scores. If the test really tests what the student should know, just changing the grade doesn't improve what they know.

I remember tests in college where 14% would be an A. IMO that is a VERY BAD test.

[NyWriterdude]

Well I sure had my share of curved grades, both up and down.

My professors at Cornell often made assignments ridiculously hard. I've had 70s that ended up being As, a 58 which turned out to be a B+, etc.

I think they use curves at the college level, particularly at competitive universities to weed out the untalented kids from a field. Education is a gatekeeper, and programs would like to think those who have a degree in that field are better than the average student or candidate.

[sj08054]

As a parent, I say it's up to the instructors and as long as their is a consistent methodology and it's discussed with the students/parents.

I don't want every teachers to be robots an do the exact same thing.