Greentext

My calc I class in college had a 23% average on the first exam. Later ones made it into the high 30%s. The professor was terrible, but since I had already taken calc in high school and he graded on a curve it was a breeze.

The main problem was that he would test for the stuff we had not covered yet because he "wanted people to work ahead."

Grading on a curve is always absurd to me: it's a cop out for teachers who don't know how to set curriculum/exams properly and demeans the education process.

Should just be

• here's a list of things you learn in this class
• you demonstrate understanding and skill over about 60% of that list
• you get a grade of 60%

Had a similar thing happen in an intro geology course. Highest grade on the final was 41%, my grade. I got an A in the class. I do not understand why anyone would make an intro to geology course that difficult. Very few are going into the field. Most just needed an extra science course, like myself.

That seems so low that it makes the benefit of the class dubious. Can you really say you're making good use of the students' time when it's clear none of them are understanding the material? Maybe the material needs to be broken up into more digestible chunks.

I knew someone who had to pass a class where the failure rate was 85%. The worst part is this was only one of a few of these classes. She was studying physics, and even though I really don't want anything to do with her now for unrelated reasons, I still feel bad for her.

It would never happen as described in this post, but things like this are way more common than people think.

I still remember teaching >3 people a subject, because they asked me to, and then we all did the exam and I was the one who failed it. Now I'm, not error-proof but that's kind of ridiculous. I have experienced a truckload of these things but that one illustrates very well how random and/or unfit for purpose most exams are. It's like a coin flip +/- 5% depending on the depths of your studies beforehand.

I was a physics major, and the whole department was famous for this. I think it's just lazy. They don't make the test for what they actually taught, they just throw shit against the wall and see what sticks.

>anon waits until all the other students leave

>asks the professor what he can "do" to pass

this is a classic porn script, gay/10

Um, the text is green, so it is clearly the unvarnished truth

"gay potential" sounds like the cutest physics term.

We did it, Lemmy!

Yeah, I studied and taught in STEM. There are true stories about professors who are monsters, but this is pure bullshit.

Wait... are there universities that don't have an anonymous exam system?

They do in conservatives' anti-intellectual fantasies

Yup, they have their TAs grade exams and grade on a curve so only a fixed percent passes.

If the story was about peer review it would probably be more believable. No way a professor does that to a fee paying student less still admits it to them. But do it to a competing prof where they are anonymous... Much more tempting.

Yeah, when a prof or teacher says "my course is so hard, only a few people pass" then I immediately translate that to "I am a shit teacher".

So long as you do the work and aren't a lazy ass student, you should have a decent pass.

State Universities lovee failing a student in an entry- level course, because the state will subsidize tuition twice for a given class per student.

They don't like doing it a second time because the student has to pay full tuition, and when classes triple in price they're more likely to drop.

basically that, yes.

though in my experience, they'd make the tests so hard that everyone would get failing or nearly failing grades, then curve up so that more people pass and some get As

only issue for them is if the average is 36% but 3 students got high 90s.. makes the curving math a lot more awkward

At my uni they'd take the highest grade of the class and reset that as the max points and grade from there.

So if max points on an exam was 120 and no-one scored higher then an 85, then an 85 would be an A, 75 a B, etc.

I'm a mediocre student but an amazing test taker and used to compete on math teams. So some of the math heavy engineering courses I would get perfect exam scores and sometimes the prof would ignore me as the highest grade. I was frustrated at first because my A didn't mean the same as someone's but I realized later it was to stop me from getting beat up by a bunch of 30 yo guys.

The curve means the class's scores is fit onto a bell curve. X% pass, Y% fail, etc all according to the predetermined standard bell curve. Doesn't matter if the class is full of Einsteins or dunces. If 30% is the highest mark in the class then that's an A+, and so on.