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Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

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674 points peterkshultz | 2 comments | 19 Oct 25 16:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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joshvm ◴[19 Oct 25 17:50 UTC] No.45636243[source]▶
One really important factor is the grading curve, if used. At my university, I think the goal was to give the average student 60%, or a mid 2.1) with some formula for test score adjustment to compensate for particularly tough papers. The idea is that your score ends up representing your ability with respect to the cohort and the specific tests that you were given.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/current/teach/general/...

There were several courses that were considered easy, and as a consequence were well attended. You had to do significantly better in those classes to get a high grade, versus a low-attendance hard course where 50% in the test was curved up to 75%.

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airstrike ◴[19 Oct 25 17:56 UTC] No.45636312[source]▶
I don't think I'll ever understand/accept the idea of curving grades.
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1. kspacewalk2 ◴[20 Oct 25 01:30 UTC] No.45639490[source]▶
It is, among other things, a way to adjust for the quality of evaluation and/or the quality of teaching.
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2. airstrike ◴[20 Oct 25 05:43 UTC] No.45640420[source]▶
I know that's the argument but it just leads to grade inflation and a diluted signal for the students ability

Any specific uncurved grade is already ultimately adjusted by the being put in a basket of other grades that the student obtained across many courses, which are generally uncorrelated (or at least just as uncorrelated before curving as they are after)