<p>The idea is that while the material is extremely easy, it’s important to master it to the level of always getting it perfect.</p>
<p>I’m really thankful my major isn’t anywhere close to touching that. Instead, I take classes where 70% can be an A, but getting even a 70% is extremely difficult in the first place.</p>
<p>Yeah, sounds like the good ole B-School grade distribution here.
However, as a science major, I feel you on the 70% thing (Pchem). A grad. level I took was pretty brutal also. Same with my organic chemistry finals. They were weeder finals, significantly harder than the midterms, which were hard themselves. My year, the orgo. II final yielded like a high 40 average, and for the first time ever, he felt the need to scale the exam (he really just adjusted the bottom scores). Needless to say, even after it, only about 2 people got As, and maybe 6-7 A grades period (I was one of them!). He says that we were his worst class ever lol. Since then the finals have managed to get harder. As in, even though I’m SI leader for it, if I had to take it w/them, I wouldn’t do well. On last semester’s the easiest question was a doing a four-step pathway to making cortisol from the open chain, the rest of the exam was madness on crack. Absolutely no standard level(predict product, mc, t/f, simple mechanism, basic recall, none of that) problems, all “think-outside the box” application problems. This professor is pure evil (these are freshmen taking these exams at that) when it comes to making exams., but the students were better, so the average is maybe high 50, low 60 now. Luckily these are the worst of my classes. I’m betting you’re engineering which is far worse. My friends at Georgia Tech tell me about it (they have to be one of the only schools I know grading harder than Berkeley or Michigan. Tech still has course sections with averages below 2.0).</p>
<p>-In a super easy class. You can’t give everyones As.</p>
<p>I know, its BS </p>
<p>Unless it’s in the social sciences or humanities, which is, yes, BS (as in the grading, not the majors).</p>
<p>The professor just e-mailed back saying he refuses to reassess the grades of 500+ students (when my friend never asked him to) and will not to consider the matter further. All my friend wants is an explanation… Any advice? =(</p>
<p>I had the same thought. If it was a curved class it would be a different story. But in a non-curved class if everybody gets 100% they all get A’s.</p>
<p>In a large class, it’s statistically very unlikely that everyone performs at a level sufficient for an A. If everyone gets an A, that means that the grading is too easy to tell the strong apart from the weak.</p>
<p>In the extremely rare case that everyone deserves an A in an uncurved class, a professor can make the argument, but chances are unlikely.</p>
<p>In upper level honors college classes here, which are entirely project-based, it’s common for just about everyone in the class to get an A. But these classes only have about 20 students and as it’s based on projects from a pool of dedicated students, it’s understandable.</p>
<p>Whereas in science classes here where the class is curved it’s pretty much preset that the lower 50% of the class will fail and few if any students will get A’s.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your input and support! My friend decided to first talk to her TA next week to see if she can review her grade. If not, she will definitely be going to the department.</p>
<p>Well, the professor just e-mailed saying that, much to his embarrassment, there was an error in the weighted calculations that affected 20% of the students. Apparently, a lot of students e-mailed him about their grades, and he FINALLY decided to look into the problem… Hopefully, my friend’s grade will be changed!</p>