Is it better to compare your grade vs the mean, median, or mode of the class?

[Ricemarine]

My Intro E E class is finally over, sheesh. Thanks for the people who told me to keep going and finish the class. Anyhow the results were:

My score:
76.63%
Mean:
74.95%
Median:
78%
Mode:
81%

So which in theory should be better to compare to?

 

[FDF12389]

Get an 85 then compare it to the mode.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Usually gets compared to the mean. Just assume you've gotten a C in the class.

 

[yhelothar]

between median and mean, whichever is higher..
high median but low mean probably means a few people didn't try at all and got really low Fs.
high mean and low median means the 25% or so of the class usually who does try really hard did really well, and you should usually compare yourself to them, so it means you could've easily done better if you tried harder.

 

[Ricemarine]

Originally posted by: astroidea
between median and mean, whichever is higher..
high median but low mean probably means a few people didn't try at all and got really low Fs.
high mean and low median means the 25% or so of the class usually who does try really hard did really well, and you should usually compare yourself to them, so it means you could've easily done better if you tried harder.

Yeah... so that means the people who did low did pretty low to lower the mean below the median. Therefore, I'm somewhere in the midst between the mean and the median which would signify I'm slightly lower than the half of the class but not by far.

My class is curved so I hope it pulls me above a 3.0 hopefully. The last class the professor taught had 70% as a 2.9 and 94% as a 4.0. Most TA's this quarter said that the mean will probably be a 3.2, but those numbers can change easily so I'll have to see about that when my final GPA gets posted for the class. This is a class out of 190 by the way.

 

[Pegun]

I was always told the Median. It's better than the mean but if you're comparing yourself to the populous then use the mode

 

[Colt45]

i don't even know what mode is.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Originally posted by: Ricemarine

Originally posted by: astroidea
between median and mean, whichever is higher..
high median but low mean probably means a few people didn't try at all and got really low Fs.
high mean and low median means the 25% or so of the class usually who does try really hard did really well, and you should usually compare yourself to them, so it means you could've easily done better if you tried harder.

Yeah... so that means the people who did low did pretty low to lower the mean below the median. Therefore, I'm somewhere in the midst between the mean and the median which would signify I'm slightly lower than the half of the class but not by far.

My class is curved so I hope it pulls me above a 3.0 hopefully. The last class the professor taught had 70% as a 2.9 and 94% as a 4.0. Most TA's this quarter said that the mean will probably be a 3.2, but those numbers can change easily so I'll have to see about that when my final GPA gets posted for the class. This is a class out of 190 by the way.

mean is a B+/A-!? what the crap is that!? Our mean is a B-/C+

 

[BoomerD]

If this isn't for calculating a grade curve, why not just compare against actual scores for the class?

 

[finite automaton]

Originally posted by: Colt45
i don't even know what mode is.

Number that appears most often IIRC

 

[esun]

It's best to look at the distribution. Otherwise, you can't really know.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: esun
It's best to look at the distribution. Otherwise, you can't really know.

This.

 

[Ricemarine]

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: esun
It's best to look at the distribution. Otherwise, you can't really know.

This.

Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to get an estimate of where I lie from the information given.

The updated info:
Mean: 75.41%
Median: 77%
Mode: 81%
Minimum Score: 0%
MaximumScore: 95%
Standard Deviaton: 12.77%

My score of 76.63% got rounded up to 77% (one of my homeworks didn't get counted), so therefore I'm ~the Median give or take a few decimals. I'll update this thread later to tell what my GPA was and compare it.

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: Ricemarine
My Intro E E class is finally over, sheesh. Thanks for the people who told me to keep going and finish the class. Anyhow the results were:

My score:
76.63%
Mean:
74.95%
Median:
78%
Mode:
81%

So which in theory should be better to compare to?

The answer: IT DEPENDS
The real answer: Check the distribution

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: Toastedlightly

Originally posted by: Ricemarine

Originally posted by: astroidea
between median and mean, whichever is higher..
high median but low mean probably means a few people didn't try at all and got really low Fs.
high mean and low median means the 25% or so of the class usually who does try really hard did really well, and you should usually compare yourself to them, so it means you could've easily done better if you tried harder.

Yeah... so that means the people who did low did pretty low to lower the mean below the median. Therefore, I'm somewhere in the midst between the mean and the median which would signify I'm slightly lower than the half of the class but not by far.

My class is curved so I hope it pulls me above a 3.0 hopefully. The last class the professor taught had 70% as a 2.9 and 94% as a 4.0. Most TA's this quarter said that the mean will probably be a 3.2, but those numbers can change easily so I'll have to see about that when my final GPA gets posted for the class. This is a class out of 190 by the way.

mean is a B+/A-!? what the crap is that!? Our mean is a B-/C+

Lulz, seriously. That's a really high mean...

 

[dullard]

There are two types of classes: the bell curve and the two-humped camel. Most of the time that I've seen the full distribution it was the two-humped camel. You have students who try and students who don't. Each of those groups tends to have it's own bell curve.

So really, you just want to be in the higher hump. You won't find that information from any of the statistics you gave. That said, the median gives you the most information. You want to be able to beat at least half the class.

 

[FleshLight]

Usually mean = C+/B-
1 STD from mean = D+/C- or A-/B+

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: dullard
There are two types of classes: the bell curve and the two-humped camel. Most of the time that I've seen the full distribution it was the two-humped camel. You have students who try and students who don't. Each of those groups tends to have it's own bell curve.

So really, you just want to be in the higher hump. You won't find that information from any of the statistics you gave. That said, the median gives you the most information. You want to be able to beat at least half the class.

Hehe, wish it was a bimodal distribution here...

 

[Kelemvor]

Mean is just a plain old average of all the scores. THat's the best thing to use.
Median is just the score of whoever is in the middle. So if 51 people take a test, the 26th score from the top or bottom is the median. Not an average or anything.
Mode is jsut whichever number shows up most often so that's useless to compare anything to since it could be anything.

 

[jagec]

Maximum is the only thing that matters...even if you don't get it, it tells you what was an achievable score, and lets you know how you compared.

 

[Tiamat]

Mean. If your professor is nice, s/he grades on a bell curve with B as the average. You either have a C+ or B+. Hopefully, it is the latter.