<p>Hello. I'm taking orgo now and I'd like to ask some people who've taken it in the past few years, how was the curve? We took our first exam and the average score was 73.2, which is amazing. The professor said during last lecture, though, that the grades are based off 50 as the center. Can someone explain? Is the curve helpful? Thanks.</p>
<p>Can anyone shed some light on this?</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure you must have misunderstood what Semmelhack said. The curve is based on the mean. In other words, you have to get a certain number of points above the mean to get an A. He should have told you what the cutoff was yesterday morning in class. 73.2 is an extraordinarily high mean. Last year the average was in the mid 50's on most exams.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply.</p>
<p>yes that is quite the high average for semmelhack orgo...</p>
<p>Could someone who took orgo last year explain how the final curve worked out? Prof. Semmelhack explained their system in the beginning of the semester but he didn't really go into detail. Anyone care to shed some light on this? Thanks.</p>
<p>half of the class pass the exam and half fail the exam, that is what he means</p>
<p>I'm not sure if that's what he meant. He said that they set the mean at 50, and 35% get As and about 40% get Bs, so more than half pass. I'm just curious about what role the final curve plays. If you're getting a B on the exams and do well in lab, does that mean you can still get an A with the final curve? He also mentioned that if you do all the problem sets and you're borderline they'll push you over.</p>
<p>semmelhack will way your final more heavily if you do significantly better on it than everything else. He has two different formulae for calculating your final grade and will give you the higher of the two. the top 10 people or so will get exemption from the final.</p>
<p>thanks. that's pretty cool about the exemption though. seems like he does everything he can to help people do well.</p>
<p>well, at the end of the day there is still a curve, and he isnt going to increase the percentage of people who get A's. His policies may just change who those lucky few are.</p>