College people, whats the biggest curve you have ever had in a class

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Antisocial Virge

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 1999
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I went through 4 1/2 years of university in a Honors Science program and only ever saw one class curved and that class had a 36% average. If the class had a failing average thats the way they kept it. Is curving it the new way of doing things now? I would think it would show poorly on the teachers teachig skills if a class did so poorly all the time.

I heard about it before hand, and that hearsay the average was 20/100, so I was like $hit! All multiple choice.

That seems rather brutal since a completely random choosing on a multiple choice test of 100 would get you an average of 25% if there were 4 possible answers.
 

nageov3t

Lifer
Feb 18, 2004
42,808
83
91
Is curving it the new way of doing things now? I would think it would show poorly on the teachers teachig skills if a class did so poorly all the time.

in college, I only had two classes that curved beyond the occasional test/quiz that everyone bombed.

the first was honors bio... but the professor didn't tell anyone that the entire semester was curved until after we took the final. it was a small class (7 people), and going into the final, we all thought we were failing because everyone had been doing so badly on the tests and labs. it made us work our arses off studying for the final. :) turned out that was exactly what the teacher wanted. the more we failed, the harder we pushed ourselves to do better.

the other class was Sociological Research Theory (400 level class, required for the major). it was the teacher's last semester and he turned the class into a joke. we spent class every week talking about the professor's family and listening to stories from his 40+ years of teaching. then he'd give us impossibly hard tests covering topics we never discussed in class. I think he just took pity on us in the end. lol.
 

MAME

Banned
Sep 19, 2003
9,281
1
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Originally posted by: Antisocial-Virge
I went through 4 1/2 years of university in a Honors Science program and only ever saw one class curved and that class had a 36% average. If the class had a failing average thats the way they kept it. Is curving it the new way of doing things now? I would think it would show poorly on the teachers teachig skills if a class did so poorly all the time.

I heard about it before hand, and that hearsay the average was 20/100, so I was like $hit! All multiple choice.

That seems rather brutal since a completely random choosing on a multiple choice test of 100 would get you an average of 25% if there were 4 possible answers.

assuming there's only 4 choices...
 

InverseOfNeo

Diamond Member
Nov 17, 2000
3,719
0
0
In my physics class that (thank G-d) I am done with the grading scale was as follows:
100-70 A
70-55 B
55-35 C
35-18 D
0-17 F

And even then no more than 2 or 3 people got an A, whereas 10-15 people got an F. I hate evil tenured profs who dont give a sh!t.
 

jman19

Lifer
Nov 3, 2000
11,225
664
126
Originally posted by: loki8481
Is curving it the new way of doing things now? I would think it would show poorly on the teachers teachig skills if a class did so poorly all the time.

in college, I only had two classes that curved beyond the occasional test/quiz that everyone bombed.

the first was honors bio... but the professor didn't tell anyone that the entire semester was curved until after we took the final. it was a small class (7 people), and going into the final, we all thought we were failing because everyone had been doing so badly on the tests and labs. it made us work our arses off studying for the final. :) turned out that was exactly what the teacher wanted. the more we failed, the harder we pushed ourselves to do better.

the other class was Sociological Research Theory (400 level class, required for the major). it was the teacher's last semester and he turned the class into a joke. we spent class every week talking about the professor's family and listening to stories from his 40+ years of teaching. then he'd give us impossibly hard tests covering topics we never discussed in class. I think he just took pity on us in the end. lol.

lol that reminds me of a story I heard about a computer arch. class at my school... Apparently the prof for the course found out midway through the semester that he wouldn't be receiving tenure. Obviously, the prof was more than a little miffed, and turned the class into a complete joke, i.e. he played movies instead of teaching, cracked jokes, etc.