<p>My Math 53 professor won't even reveal the percentage of students to whom he allots A's. For each midterm, he only provides the median score for each letter grade (for example, "the median of an A-range grade on this midterm is about 96%") and that's it. He shows the students no grade distributions, no scoring standards/answer keys for his exams, etc. All he says is that final grades are determined at the end of the course by totalling up all the course points and then "curving" the results.</p>
<p>The same applies for Chem 1A.</p>
<p>I came from a high school where most of my teachers handed out grade printouts at least once a month so that we could track our progress and inform them about any discrepancies. Sometimes, instructors can make mistakes. Here, it seems that professors only want to deal with grading after finals, when students are all back home for winter break and couldn't pester them with any questions.</p>
<p>It seems that the only way to know you're getting an A in whichever class is by doing exceptionally well in it so that there can be no question about it. Is this really the case here?</p>
<p>get a mass protest going. with enough people and faked violence you're bound to scare the administration into forcing the profs to do whatever you want.</p>
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Why do profs make their grading policies so unclear?
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<p>Not to sound cynical, but this is usually so that the profs can basically hand out any grades they want and not get challenged on it because nobody will ever really 'know' that they got an incorrect or inappropriate grade. So if you were expecting an A and you end up with a C, you don't really have grounds to protest because nobody knows what the real grade distribution. Hence, if you challenge your grade, the prof can always just say that that's what the grade distribution gave you. </p>
<p>I know that sounds coldhearted but the fact is, profs anywhere (not just at Berkeley) can and do grade basically any way they want, and can even violate their own grading policies.</p>
<p>I have Prof. Frenkel. Keep in mind that he might not be teaching the class next semester. Anyway, the first midterm was too easy (median was above 80%), so he made the second midterm extra hard.</p>
<p>i signed up math 53 with zworski. i heard that most of the math teachers at CAL were not very good so i don't expect much. i don't know what to take to fulfill the second semester of english though. i hate english so i want a class that is easy. it's not that i hate english is just that i have never been good at english. what english class do you recommend?</p>
<p>"I know that sounds coldhearted but the fact is, profs anywhere (not just at Berkeley) can and do grade basically any way they want, and can even violate their own grading policies."</p>
<p>I'm also taking Math 53 w/ Frenkel. To be honest, I actually like this midterm better. I think harder midterm like this one can differentiate who's actually good and who's not.
For the last midterm, I made a stupid mistake and it was enough to drop my grade to a B+. Not to be arrogant or anything, but I think it's kinda messed-up to have a lower grade than other people whom you know aren't as good in math as you are. I mean.....the last midterm is like a 5 problem homework set.....This can't be an indicator of how well a person learns the material.......</p>