<p>Mrs. Ferguson, thanks for the explanation. It obviously is not a simple thing to explain. </p>
<p>Your definition of "curved" as dependent on how people do on that very test may be what people mean when they ask. If they mean, "Can a majority of folks score 30 and above?" then I think the answer is theoretically yes, but realistically no.</p>
<p>I'm surprised that the scores aren't normally distributed anymore. I can see how if you set things to equal previous tests, the "copy of a copy of a copy" phenomenon could get things a little out of whack. But I would think that students' abilities would still be normally distributed and thus a test would reflect that.</p>
<p>Do you happen to have a link that shows the number of people with each score recently and in past years? Don't go to any extra effort; I would just find that interesting if you know of one.</p>
<p>Thanks again for taking the time to explain all this. My understanding was obviously a theoretical one based on my statistics book and the fact that my daughter's percentile and score happened to fit the normal distribution pattern explained in the book. It didn't go into the question of making the test consistent from year to year, which I can see would complicate things.</p>