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percentage relative to each category in a course. So, in a non-laboratory geology class, you may have fifty percent of the course grade based on performance on two examinations (midterm and final), thirty percent determined by assign- ments, and twenty percent from partici- pation. In order to calculate your final grade percentage in the class, you need to take into account the weighted values. See Table 2 above for an example.
Grading on a Curve
In many cases, your professors will use a “straight percentage” grading scheme, where an “A” in the class cor- responds to performance at the 90% level or above.10 In some instances, a course professor may choose to “grade on the curve.” This can mean different things to different people, but in general, refers to assigning grades based on the assumption that a typical distribution of grades should be found on a normal curve (hence, use of the word curve in “grading on the curve”).11 An individual instructor may take a specific approach to “curving” and presume that 10% of the students in his class should earn an “A.” It is important to note that it is the instructor who identifies the percent- ages he or she will use for each letter grade. In the example below, suppose the average on a test in the class is 85%,
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Figure 1. Illustration of the percentages of students that would fall within 1, 2, and 3 standard deviations of the mean (85). Note: The curve and values are not to scale.
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and therefore, the center of the normal curve is placed at 85%. In this case, the instructor has arbitrarily elected to adopt a distribution calling for grades as shown in Table 3. Figure 1 shows how the distribution fits on the normal curve. If there are 100 students in the class, then
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10. Usually 90-100% = A; 80-89% = B; 70-79% = C; 60-69% = D; 59% = F. The real difference between grading straight percentage or grading on a curve is choosing to adopt a criterion- or norm-referenced approach (with the former referring specifically to straight percent, where in theory, everybody could earn an “A” in the class; contrast this with the latter, where only a specific percentage of students will earn an “A” even if the lowest percentage earned by a student in the entire class is 90%).
11. Normal curve from statistics, also called a Bell curve. Strictly speaking, a true normalization for grading would base grades on stan- dard deviation within the normal curve; therefore, identification of the exact middle of the curve would be where 50% of the scores fall above and 50% below. One standard deviation from the middle would include 34% of the scores; between one and two standard deviations would contain approximately 14% of the scores; more than three standard deviations would be about 2% of scores. Many, if not most, professors grading on a curve modify the assumed percentages among standard deviations (e.g., 5-10%, rather than 2%, of students should earn A’s). [The description herein is not an endorsement on my part for grading on a curve.]
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