<p>Besides the fact that they may help you get a better grade. If you were to look at grading curves objectively are they good or bad? I'm generally referring to curves in AP Classes, but I guess some hard honors classes could be thrown in as well.</p>
<p>Pros to them:Less people will fail the class, and in my AP Euro class it creates a friendly competitiveness to who can set or beat the curve. (He curves to the 2nd highest score, for example on my last test I got 33/39, but I was 2nd highest in the class so I got 33/33 and the girl who was the best got 34/39 and her grade shows it as 34/33) But I don't know if this could be said for all classes, it's also a good way to challenge students (especially in AP Calc or Physics) to take extremely hard tests, but it won't ruin most of their grades because the curve will compensate for the extreme difficulty of the test.</p>
<p>Cons to them:While it is nice to expose kids to harder tests to prepare them for college, if you are giving them tests that are so hard they need curves to pass the class, then the tests are probably to hard. It also leaves for one or two students to have very inflated grades who are always setting the curves and they may not have as high of grades otherwise. I also think in some cases it's incentive to not study as hard because you figure that if you get a D on the test before the curve, that it will be a B after the curve and aren't worried as much about it.</p>
<p>Just thought I would present both sides and let people discuss this.</p>