<p>Im reading this as an international who has never even heard about the idea of curving. At my school getting an A is close to impossible, the average of our 5 top students converted into the x/100 scale would maybe be around 75. This year nobody has yet aced anything. The overall class median after tests often is around 50.</p>
<p>Why would a teacher curve a test? isnt he just cheating himself and everybody else? Lets say the best pupil did 94, so he was obviously very good, yet not perfect on the topic - as clearly represented by his score. If you'd curve that up to full 100 it wouldnt be representative for his performance. Whats the point of having a scoring system when you just change the marks whenever the outcome doesnt fit your aspirations?
I'd even find it to be counterproductive to give out 100s, if you aced a test completely obviously you werent challenged, 80-90 from a teachers perspective seems to be a nice position to have one's top-students, so at least they'd have some goal to work towards.
Then again we dont have multiple-choice tests of simple quizzes here, only like 4 hour exams with a hand full of open ended questions, the general bar set for an A seems to be: the teacher needs special literature to understand your text and points made. On a multiple choice i guess it'd be harder to make a test were you'd have the best ones close to a hundred but still not feel the urge to help the weak students with their scores...</p>
<p>It only happens in my math class. What happens is usually the tests are out of 105-109. He rounds them to 100. Its the only reason I have an A and not A-</p>
<p>My teachers typically curve if almost everyone in the class does poorly. It also depends on the size of the class. A larger class with one or two people breaking the curve USUALLY gets a curve as opposed to a smaller class with one or two people breaking the curve which usually does NOT get a curve.</p>
<p>It's popular with a lot of the math teachers at my school. Only truly mean teachers don't curve or scale the grades when the whole class is failing.</p>
<p>All AP teachers have to curve at our school if it's an object test. The curve is really weird though, if you get a 60, 23 points get added to your score, but if you get like a 97, only 4 or 5 points get added to your score. Non-AP teachers curve with the "somebody gets a 100 way." So that if the highest was a 95, everyone gest 5 points. And if somebody does get a 100, they always announce who the 100 to the class so everyone hates them.</p>
<p>My AP Calc BC teacher curves, and by curves I mean she gives you whatever grade she feels like. I mean, it's always higher than your real grade, but there's no function you could apply to the curve or anything.</p>
<p>tobiz.int, we get curves in my school because the teachers don't agree with grades and the american grading system in general, because they think we're all good, smart kids who deserve to do well.</p>