<p>What does grading on a curve in college mean? How is it from grading in high school? Does it mean its impossible to get an 'A' in some classes?</p>
<p>Grading on a curve means that the grades are normalized, or adjusted, or weighted. Pick your preferred adjective. It can mean different things to different professors, so it's difficult to give a specific answer. You really have to take it on a course-by-course basis, since every professor's curve is different.</p>
<p>This question isn't particularly engineering-specific and probably should go in the general "college questions" section.</p>
<p>Which section is the general "college questions" section?</p>
<p>its not uncommon for the average grade on an exam in engineering to be like 30%. so if the average is 30% and you get a 30%, this means you get a B-/C+ grade.</p>
<p>Grading on a curve basically makes it easier for you to get a good grade. With a curve, you can get an A but really deserve a B if it wasn't curved. In my opinion, curving can lead to grade inflation. Here are ways of curving that my teachers have done in the past.</p>
<p>One way of grading on a curve would be to take the highest test grade in a class and making that the maximum points possible. For example: if the top student received a 90/100, the test would be adjusted to be out of 90 and that student would have a 100% on the test. This means that students who score an 80/100 would have an 80/90 and so on.</p>
<p>Another way of grading on a curve would be to take the class average and standard deviation and adjust the letter grade accordingly. For example: the class average on a test was 50% with a standard deviation of 10%. A "C" would be 50%, while the range of the "C" will be 45-55%. A "B" would be 56-66%, and an "A" would be >67%.</p>