On Mar 23, 2007, at 1:17 AM, Hector Martin wrote:

> In the end marks are shifted so that the class average is some
> "acceptable" number, shifting everyone's marks accordingly.

Yeah.  Grading "on the curve"; hit the average grade and you get
a C (or somewhat higher for "advanced" classes), even if that's
only 50%.  Standard procedure for most college/universities, but
quite a shock to all the "smart" people used to getting 90% without
having to exert much effort.  And as you say, it can be frustrating
if the low grades are because the teacher isn't getting the material
across (at my U, it tended to be more due to material on exams that
was never covered in class, or just exams that were too long to do
in the time allotted.)  In any case, a class where everyone gets 80%+
all the time just isn't hard enough to weed out the pre-meds that
shouldn't be there (which is, perhaps sadly, sometimes one of the
goals of intro-level science classes in university.)

(this doesn't mean that your teacher is better than you think, it
just means that you can't necessarily tell from the exam grades.)

BillW
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