<p>op_city, I think with math 1B, if it were curved plenty of people still would have failed.</p>
<p>I took all my harder MCB classes earlier on when I still had a work ethic. It was tought to do well, especially with a loud, partying roommate. I got an A in Math 1b, and an A- in Math 1a. The same trend followed for Physics 8a and 8b (or the premed equivalent). I took the latter part of the series first and did better because the curve was harder and I had a serious work ethic then. I then retook the earlier sections to "boost" my gpa ironically enough. The classes were actually tougher to get a good GPA in because the material was easier and the testing seemed less thorough, so you were competing with dumber people who worked harder for an A.</p>
<p>So, Math 1B's toughness is really a double-edged sword depending on what kind of student you are.</p>
<p>Anyways, school is not about "smartness" and certainly not the kind that wins Nobels. School is about balancing difficult classes with easy ones; not procrastinating; and most of all preparation, preparation, and preparation.</p>
<p>Most Berkeley classes (especially the large ones) have plenty of their material online. If you are really concerned about the grade, I would research the prof and what they focus on. Doing every problem within the chapters assigned is a good start, but definitely won't guarantee a good grade at Berkeley; it'll probably earn you a B average or so in most cases.</p>
<p>In general, I've found either tests (in early premed and non-engineering weeders) are so easy that stupid mistakes cost you the grade or the tests are designed so that the majority of students are supposed to miss a certain difficult problem. My Math 1B teacher liked to exercise the latter test-forming strategy. The key to beating that kind of test is to prepare and do mostly old practice exams. There will be a definite underlying theme to the kind of problem that is suppose to trick you. Once you figure out how you're supposed to be trick, it is easier to do well on tests.</p>
<p>But thats just my experience. 3 different teachers teach Math 1B at a time and those teachers rotate in and out of the math department.</p>
<p>What is the average curve for the majority of psych classes at Cal?</p>
<p>"The classes were actually tougher to get a good GPA in because the material was easier and the testing seemed less thorough, so you were competing with dumber people who worked harder for an A."</p>
<p>?</p>
<p>@Fusionice662: I don't know about the others, but Psych 160 is graded on a standard ten-point scale, and it seems to be one of the most popular upper-division courses in the department.</p>
<p>I just took the last of three non-cumulative exams yesterday, and I must say that the class is NOT as easy as it sounds. The material is not difficult, but when there are 200+ pages of reading covered on each exam, and two-thirds of each exam is recall (in the form of short-answer and essay questions) and not recognition, it's really easy to miss some details and be docked points for them.</p>
<p>If you're curious, the mean on each of the first two exams was 81.X percent, which corresponds to a letter grade of B-. Seriously, that's no different from the weeder engineering courses.</p>
<p>Gah, I also posted this on UCLA's forum, but what is the average curve range for psych classes there?</p>
<p>"They very rarely hand out A+s."</p>
<p>No, this can't be true..my son took 2 math courses at Cal his last semester of high school since he'd run out of math at his high school and received an A+ in both classes: Math 54 & Math 74. I told him about this post and he thought it was pretty funny - if he received 2 A+s at Cal when he was still in high school, they can't be all that rare.</p>
<p>oaklandmom, there could be a lot of reasons explaining the situation with your son and still having "they rarely hand out A+s" be true. I think it is true that, in general, very few A+s are given out compared to the number of other grades when taking into account all the courses undergraduates take on campus. Some classes give out "a lot" of A+s, but there are not many classes like that on campus, and it's still generally a very small part of the overall percentage of grades in those particular classes. Maybe your son was the best student or in the best handful of students in the class, maybe he had generous professors, maybe he got lucky. He's probably pretty good at math. :)</p>