<p>Damn, that much curving? Lucky, lucky. I see what my friend was talking about now. I thought we had a lot. but that makes ours seem minuscule. Normally if the profs. are unsatisfied in gen. bio/chem., they give only 2-3 point curves or open up some ranges (like give select students between 90-92.9 an A as opposed to the normal A-), except for calc-physics and orgo. (where the predicted average or actual average ends up at a B-. Normally that’s in the 60s-low 70s. Courses are hard here, but people tend not to fail so you still must do relatively well to even get a B), where they can get large, but not as large as the ones you stated. Having larger classes really has an advantage gradewise I guess. However, I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in an upperlevel course at Tech. And trust me, I know what you mean about the sophomore “slumping”, I experienced it this year. Classes infinitely harder, and not studying as efficiently as freshmen year. It was very annoying. Let me not mention that I experienced at least 2 classes with a harsh bell curve (Advanced Inorganic was one. It had the harshest bellcurve ever). I got the wrong end of both 
(still passed, but knew I was curved downward)</p>
<p>Wow…that sucks man…hopefully i dont end up in the same situation as you. I heard that the comp sci dept at tech doesn’t have too much curving problem and usually its in the favor of students so im a little relieved about that. However, what is the point of curving if the class isnt too hard? For example, if the class has all mixed grades like 40% A’s, 30% B’s, and 30% C&D, would the professor still have to use a bell curve and only give out 15% or 20% A’s and make the majority of the class have B’s and C’s?</p>
<p>I don’t know if most would curve in that case, even if the class is hard. I don’t know about Tech, but science courses here like to keep a course distribution with about 40-50% below 3.0, hence the popularity of the B-. Honestly, I think I was just unfortunate this year. Those (Inorganic, and Genetics) are some of the only classes where the prof. bell-curves. Others curve up, adjust the scale, or cap higher-ranged grades in specified manners. Now, I know that if I get a syllabus without an explanation of the grading scheme at Emory, run unless the course is required. What happened in Inorganic was, most people were seniors who had taken PChem already, and thus knew the material in even greater dept. even though most who did not admitted it was brutal. They (seniors) skewed averages way upward, and the traditional ranges were moved up. Lots of people with a traditional A-, got B/B+ (normally 83-89.9) if they did not have like a 93 or above on the three exams (I’m thinking that A started at like 96). People at serious disadvantages were people like me who took organic chem. as freshmen, and were recommended to take Advanced inorganic (Emory threw out intermediate, so we aren’t like Tech anymore. The chemistry dept. here seems to be throwing all of the intermediate options out, which makes being a chem. major here very difficult. Basically a series of weed-out courses with no variety of electives like at Tech). Needless to say, I should have taken Biochemistry, Quantitative Analysis, or Analytical Chem. Thank goodness for the biology and NBB courses here. Tough, but more doable and contain a more interesting variety than chemistry.</p>