Foo - If you get a 65% on a test...

...and the class average is a 62 where n=262 and SD=13

Should you feel bad :o:(

Are you happy with the results independent of what others in the class got? If not then you should feel bad.

So curve grading, you are the right side of the curve then.

Not curve grading, just remember D stands for diploma.

Are you happy with the results independent of what others in the class got? If not then you should feel bad.

Hmm, see...that's why i ask, because i feel bad. I'd rather live in a world of fluffy where everyone tells me it'll be ok and not to worry :rolleyes:

So curve grading, you are the right side of the curve then.

Not curve grading, just remember D stands for diploma.

He says he wont curve, which i never get. It seems the only teachers who ever curve grades are the ones who do it in classes where it clearly isn't needed, and the teachers with classes who average 62% on their tests do not.

He says he wont curve, which i never get. It seems the only teachers who ever curve grades are the ones who do it in classes where it clearly isn't needed, and the teachers with classes who average 62% on their tests do not.

I had a couple of those classes. Everyone just tried to get through it and then were happy they were done with it. If rest of your grades are strong, you can minimize the GPA hit and always go back in retake it if you do need to bump the GPA.

I had a couple of those classes. Everyone just tried to get through it and then were happy they were done with it. If rest of your grades are strong, you can minimize the GPA hit and always go back in retake it if you do need to bump the GPA.


Whooops.

Slacking off the first 2 1/2 years of my college career...yuck.

Whooops.

Slacking off the first 2 1/2 years of my college career...yuck.

Yeah, I did that one too. Luckily I was forced to transfer, credits transfer, grades don't. :p

Hmm, see...that's why i ask, because i feel bad. I'd rather live in a world of fluffy where everyone tells me it'll be ok and not to worry :rolleyes:

Okay then, in reality you did horribly and clearly weren't prepared for the test that you took. Sixty five percent on a test shows a clear lack of understanding of the material or very bad time management skills. Which one effected your test results?

With such a large SD, a lot of people understood the material. You are right smack in the middle. If this subject is important to you, I would be worried.

With such a large SD, a lot of people understood the material. You are right smack in the middle. If this subject is important to you, I would be worried.

You may want to look at those stats a little more...

mean=62, SD=13, which means that roughly 81% of the class got less then a 75% (or about 212 out of 262). I don't know, but if i were teaching the class i would strive for a little more then that.

Regardless, i don't really give a **** about the rest of the class. It does however reinforce my belief that his lectures are worthless. Essentially they amount to him going over the pictures in the previous nights reading.

Regardless of that i'm the one who got the score, i suspect i know where i went bad on the test and that would be the material that was covered in the last 2 1/2 weeks. This coincides with midterms in all my other classes as well as 5 papers. So, i'd call it time management :)

This is essentially a biology class, which has always killed me. I probably should have taken "child development" instead. Whatever.

class average is a meaningless statistic here. There could be people who go 100 on the test and people who got 21 on the test. Given the SD, your grade puts you right at the class average. When I was your age, I was ok with average. After a few years, I came to realize, average is not that great.

You just have a dumb class. Not much more to say. :rolleyes:

...and the class average is a 62 where n=262 and SD=13

Should you feel bad :o:(

You should feel average, but one test by itself doesn't mean much.

Case in point, first year physics, I scored 65%. Average grade over my whole degree: 85%.

:)

You just have a dumb class. Not much more to say. :rolleyes:

Perhaps, but, and i hate placing blame elsewhere, i've taken classes like this before where the class average is consistently low. There is a direct correlation between the quality of the educator and class grades.

Teaching the class this test was in
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=888840

Meanwhile, i'm getting an A in this class
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=578817

Each one of these lectures costs me about $75 every time i go, it would be nice if i felt it was worth it :)

My 9 year old was stating that a 75% was "passing" on one of his papers the other day. He told me that it was good enough. So i put it into terms he can understand. I said," do you remember baseball this summer? The guys that were getting A's and B's were in the infield and the guys that were getting C's were in the outfield. Everyone below that was on the bench."

I knew that made sense to him because he HATED playing outfield and felt like a failure. (whole 'nuther story :rolleyes:) So the moral of the story...I dunno, i was lucky to get a 'C.':D

Now that this little 62 quandary is about resolved, who's up got getting a few drinks before noon?

Perhaps, but, and i hate placing blame elsewhere, i've taken classes like this before where the class average is consistently low. There is a direct correlation between the quality of the educator and class grades.

Teaching the class this test was in
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=888840

Meanwhile, i'm getting an A in this class
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=578817

Each one of these lectures costs me about $75 every time i go, it would be nice if i felt it was worth it :)

Of course I was joking. Yes the instructor can certainly make or break the class. There are always those students that somehow get good grades in spite of the prof. I was always one that if I liked the teacher I did well, if not it was a struggle.

Depends on the standards of the test. There is nothing wrong with 65% if the prof intends for 50% to be a B. And some profs like to write hard tests that force you to think. I've taken many a test where I was very proud to eke out a 60% or so and be near the top of the class as a result. (Side story: First physical chemistry test I took, I got a 60%. I went to the prof later asking whether I should drop the class since I didn't need it, being a high school student at the time, and since I didn't score so well. She told me that it was the 10th best score in the class, and I definitely should stay.) There is a lot wrong with 65% if it's a topic that matters to you (as thomson points out) and there's plenty of people doing a lot better. In this case, if this topic matters to you, there's a good 20% of the class or so that scored 75% or better. Most likely, there's a large percentage for whom the topic doesn't really matter to you, so it's really those top students you really want to compare yourself against.

If class average is 62, you got a 65 with SD=13....it just means your average. Did you expect different?

I never curve- I don't believe in it. On the other hand, if any of my tests yield a 62% average, I take that as a message that I done wrong and I make every effort to fix it next time.

I recall a Physics III class eons ago where I got a 9 on a test which was the average. High score was something like a 15.

I recall a Physics III class eons ago where I got a 9 on a test which was the average. High score was something like a 15.

...9%?

I never curve- I don't believe in it. On the other hand, if any of my tests yield a 62% average, I take that as a message that I done wrong and I make every effort to fix it next time.
Agreed. I had many profs in college who purposely designed really hard tests so that averages were in 50s to 60s and then curved. I never understood the concept. All you are doing is demotivating the student with the low grade and you aren't teaching them more by a particularly difficult test.



I recall a Physics III class eons ago where I got a 9 on a test which was the average. High score was something like a 15.

LOL....I had a similar experience in one of my undergrad computer engineering courses. The class average was like a 12. He ended up being "forced" by department to issue a new (more acceptable) test. He gave us another test and average was a 20.

I had a physics class where the first exam average was like 35, at a smart school too. Dam right that was curved...

My wife got a 5 on her first med school exam. She finished near the top of her class in the end. Sometimes I think profs make the first test hard to get the students to apply themselves. Kind of a wake up call. Of course some just drop the course first.

He says he wont curve, which i never get. It seems the only teachers who ever curve grades are the ones who do it in classes where it clearly isn't needed, and the teachers with classes who average 62% on their tests do not.

Just because he won't curve based on class performance doesn't necessarily mean the cutoffs go 90% = A, 80% = B, etc.

Just because he won't curve based on class performance doesn't necessarily mean the cutoffs go 90% = A, 80% = B, etc.

it does...

There were oh so many tests I was very happy to get 65s. I hated tests. I could know the material frontwards, backwards and upside-down but put that blank test in front of me and I became a blathering idiot.

I just finished a fluids exam that averaged 64% and a vibrations exam that averaged 66%.

Physics II saw class averages in the mid-low 30%tile. I was enthralled to get a 43% on one of the exams, which was the A/B border.

It's unfortunate that, if the whole class gets such crappy scores, that the professors think they are doing their job well and it is the student's fault.

If we shouldn't know it, don't put it on the exam. If we should know it and we all do poorly on the exam, reassess yourself.

At my university, the average in most classes was around 65-70%. The university enforced this: if a professor was seen as giving too many high grades, he or she had to justify it to his or her department. This wasn't the case so much in upper-year seminars and the like, but the first two years were absolutely Darwinian.

Looks like my Prof had a change of hearts...he said he'll curve the scores at the end of the semester.

Weeee

I may still be able to pull off an A