<p>I hear a lot about grading on the curve but every class I've taken so far (calc, physics, and chem) all had grading formulas that were based only on my grades on tests, quizzes, assignments, and labs. No curving involved. So how widespread is grade curving, and where do you typically see it? Upper level classes? Lower level? Engineering-specific classes? Or is it more a school-to-school thing? F'instance, I've taken all my classes at a CC so far. Would a large university grade more often? For every class or just for some?</p>
<p>In my experience it depends on the instructor and how difficult the class is. Make no sense if you grade on a curve on some Art 101 class because everyone will probably get an A. My sociology professor would grade on a curve if you class average was below 75%. I am currently a freshman at my state university and I have heard that most upper division engineering classes most grade on a curve since most averages are around 40s and 50s.</p>
<p>At the community college I went to, I would say half the time an ‘A’ was an 85% or higher, and the other half there wouldn’t be a curve at all. Once in a while if a test average was really low, the professor would curve the test individually. For the most part though, there wasn’t much of a curve.</p>
<p>At the university I’m at now there is pretty much always a curve (in upper division at least). It’s not rare to see test averages in the 40’s, so there has to be a curve. Also, once you get in to upper division, professors try to pass everyone with C’s or better, so that obviously means there’s a curve. It all depends on the class and teacher though. If the class average is high, there might not be a curve. But if the average is low, there will be.</p>
<p>I’ve seen it done lot’s of ways, usually a professor will shift the grades up (or down) by a certain amount until the class average is 75%. But it all depends on the professor, I’ve had plenty that don’t curve at all, I even had one that took the square root of your grade and multiplied it by ten to get the final percentage, that was nice…</p>
<p>The term “curve” is misused almost without fail every time a grade distribution is adjusted. Technically, a curve is the practice of setting the grade distribution to a normal distribution. This is rarely done in practice. Usually when a class is “curved” it is just the professor looking at final grades and setting his own limits for A, B, etc rather than adhering to some set value for each.</p>