Question

I have heard students say in the past "I hope this teacher grades on a curve." What do they mean by this? Is it beneficial to you or not?

Answer 1

Grading on curve mean using normal distrubution curve to determine the grades instead of using a pre determined grading scale. To grade on a curve, the teacher will calculate the eman and standard deviation of the distribution of scores and will assign grades based how many percentage of shtudents should get each grade. For example, A grade for top 20%, B grade for the 20% below A grade (between 60 and 80 percentile) and so on.

Wheter this system is beneficial for you, depends on you performance and difficulty level fo a test. If the test is very difficult, under conventional grading only few may get a grade, but if graded on curve, no matter how bad the entire class performs, th top X% will get A grade. So, the grades based on acurve indicates the relative performance of the class to the average score. Also, this system is favorable even when 1 or 2 of your classmates secure a very high score in exam, because its not only them but the other who belong to top X% also will secure A grade if graded on a curve. This is not beneficial if the exams are easy where all students secure reasonably high scores.