<p>was this semester particularly easy for everyone or what? </p>
<p>then again, to think that only about 4% of the school had a 4.0 this semester... i guess no semester is really "particularly easy." meh.</p>
<p>i was annoyed with this. I got a 3.96 this past semester. (Early Senioritis turned an A into an A-…)</p>
<p>I hope Berkeley is not experiencing grade inflation.</p>
<p>Berkeley has had grade inflation over the years (see [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com) – at the bottom are specific schools).</p>
<p>There’s definitely plenty of grade inflation at Cal. The perfect example is Chem 4B this past semester…they gave a 7% boost to our overall exam grade (~4.5% to the course grade) for completing two extra credit projects, despite the fact that 4B is a straight scale (no curve) class. Accordingly, people that should’ve been on the B+/A- (87.5%) border were bumped up to solid A’s (92%), and those of us with solid A’s were bumped up to A+'s (~97%). I find that to be pretty ridiculous and I’d love to see exactly what percentage of people received some kind of A in that class (I would guess something like 40%).</p>
<p>EDIT: But I should add that there’s also some grade deflation at Berkeley as well. For example in Math 54 this semester, Professor Teleman was angry that so few people showed up to the (horrible) lectures and decided to curve the second midterm to a C-/C average…I think that screwed a few people over.</p>
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<p>The way I see it, it’s all relative. You can always make it harder to do well, and you can always make it easier. There isn’t necessarily a point where it’s exactly enough to test your abilities.</p>
<p>In fact, there’s a bit of a problem - sure, a hard test may make some people’s scores different, but is it really measuring what they know in a useful form?</p>
<p>I think a well-constructed course with sufficient challenge and perhaps a little inflation is far more effective than a poorly constructed one with zero inflation.</p>
<p>lols always missed dean’s list cut off due to not having 13 letter graded units. Serves me right though I guess, wouldn’t have gotten the 4.0 w/o P/F :)</p>
<p>I think a well-constructed course with sufficient challenge and perhaps a little inflation is far more effective than a poorly constructed one with zero inflation.</p>
<p>Ideal though…sadly, that’s not gonna happen often, at least not at a big school like Berkeley.</p>
<p>And Dean’s List includes all the majors in LS. It’s bound to be higher</p>
<p>Wow you guys got a grade boost for 4B? Lucky -______-</p>
<p>@JBeak: That happened to me too freshmen year. Haha, but I was taking even less than you because CoE only requires 12 units to be full-time. Lol.</p>