Hi,
I was just informed that Organic chem 2OA3 had a long answer average of 50 percent, and MC of 60%. Are there set rules for bell-curving the marks, because my friend at UofT had one prof add 8 percent onto the students final marks....which seems pretty dramatic for a bio course.

Salima

what is your source for this info?

Originally Posted by salimak

Hi,
I was just informed that Organic chem 2OA3 had a long answer average of 50 percent, and MC of 60%. Are there set rules for bell-curving the marks, because my friend at UofT had one prof add 8 percent onto the students final marks....which seems pretty dramatic for a bio course.

Salima

No... there's no rules for curving grades. I've explained this before on other threads, but we don't really get curved grades here. The prof might make the exam out of fewer marks (thereby increasing the class average), but that's not the same as grading on a curve.

It's possible that your professor might bump up everyone's mark a little bit, but not guaranteed. Professors are supposed to try to target a certain class average though, so maybe! Just keep your fingers crossed.

Originally Posted by manu

what is your source for this info?

My friend went to get her lab reports and Teri told her

I've copy/pasted my explanation on curved grading for your information:

More often than not in Canada, the grades in classes are not "bell curved"... usually if a professor modifies the grades it's by making the denominator smaller (ie making the final grade out of of a smaller number). This would make everyone's mark a little bit better.

True "bell curving" (as seen in American universities) means normalizing the grades. This would mean applying a transformation to the histogram/distribution of the marks such that whatever the majority of students recieve is considered "average" (or equivalent to a C+). If your mark was close to the mean, you get around a C or C+... if your mark was higher than the mean, you get a B or higher. If your mark was lower than the mean, you get a C- or lower.... you get the idea.

Normalizing the data (or true 'bell curving') actually makes it much more difficult to get a good grade (since most people are average), and only really benefits the entire class if everyone has a low mark (in which case it would be rewarding the students for failing... not good, and a lot of universities have been heavily criticized for grade inflation)

I've had professors here who don't understand what students are talking about when they ask if the grades will be curved... it doesn't happen in Canada... at least not to the extent that it does in the States, and certainly not to the extent that people seem to think it does.

In systems such as in US universities, many courses are graded on a curve from the start... this means that the number of students who will recieve each grade is predetermined (most students get a C+, fewer get C-/B+, etc.). Once test scores are determined, it's simply a matter of filling those bins... so if most students score 75% or 80%, those students will fall into the C+ bin, and so on, with the most exceptional students falling into the A or A+ range... this is why the student with the best mark "sets the curve" because everyone else must get a lower relative grade... if most students score 80% on a test, and one student scores 90%, that student will get an A+ and the majority of students (who scored 80's) will get C+ grades.

On the other hand, if most students get a 50% on the test, and one or two students score 75%... then those two students will get A's and the majority will get C+ grades.

Grading on a curve means grading students relative to others in their class, as opposed to grading based on their actual test scores. Standardized tests such as the MCAT, LSAT, SAT's ect. are all graded this way. Most Canadian university classes on the other hand, are not.

EDIT: There's an okay wikipedia article on this topic for more information... I can understand how many students (esp. first years) can have a problem understanding this, since they don't generally have much statistics background.

You won't get curved. As Taunton said, curving is basically assigning grades relative to some median determined by the professor, and they don't do it at McMaster (as far as I know).

They do reduce denominators, add marks to numerators, or (occasionally, like in the 2nd chem 1A03 midterm) do both, however.

Originally Posted by Taunton

No... there's no rules for curving grades. I've explained this before on other threads, but we don't really get curved grades here. The prof might make the exam out of fewer marks (thereby increasing the class average), but that's not the same as grading on a curve.

It's possible that your professor might bump up everyone's mark a little bit, but not guaranteed. Professors are supposed to try to target a certain class average though, so maybe! Just keep your fingers crossed.

My boyfriend said it happens quite a bit in Engineering, in his courses at least.

I found out that one tutorial group in one of my classes received substantially lower marks than the other tutorial groups, due to a very difficult TA (I was also in this tutorial). As far as I know, the prof didn't bell curve the marks. Is there a chance that someone else in the department will? My tutorial average was like a C- while the other tutorials' averages were B+ and A-.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

My boyfriend said it happens quite a bit in Engineering, in his courses at least.

I found out that one tutorial group in one of my classes received substantially lower marks than the other tutorial groups, due to a very difficult TA (I was also in this tutorial). As far as I know, the prof didn't bell curve the marks. Is there a chance that someone else in the department will? My tutorial average was like a C- while the other tutorials' averages were B+ and A-.

Curved grades aren't a mystery - if it's being done, the professor will tell you. Often, in the states, a professor will tell you what mark set the curve, etc. So, if it is being done, you will know it... it's never "I wonder if they will curve the grades". Curving isn't done after the fact, it's almost always done ahead of time. Here is a wikipedia article listing the GPA curves for various US law schools (note that the explanation on curved grading is wrong in this article, and doesn't match up with the actual 'grading on a curve' article) It's so well known that you will be graded on a curve ahead of time that you can look up what the average mark will be! This doesn't exist at McMaster, and if the occaisonal professor grades on a curve, I feel like it would be well known.

What I'm trying to do is explain exactly what grading on a curve is because people don't seem to know what it means. Just know that true bell-curving doesn't really happen in Canada, and if people think it's happening, they're probably wrong. Not that your boyfriend is necessarily wrong, but in my experience on the subject, most people don't realize what they're talking about. What's laughable is that most people think that curved grading will automatically increase their grade - chances are it won't.

The only person who can change your marks is your professor. Don't get your hopes up, because professors are supposed to target a certain class average (usually around 65%), and if your tutorial helps keep the class average down, then he/she won't have a problem keeping it there.

They won't curve unless significant numbers of people end up failing. The labs and assignments were a joke and they'll bring everybody up at least 10%.

doesn't UofT grade in some sort of wierd way? I can't remember if it was on a curve or something else...all I remember reading was that they grade in a way that makes it difficult to do well.

Originally Posted by crazyfree

doesn't UofT grade in some sort of wierd way? I can't remember if it was on a curve or something else...all I remember reading was that they grade in a way that makes it difficult to do well.

Not sure about individual courses, but they do use the 4-point grading system for GPA's.

You might have to find course syllabi or even contact a professor there to know if they grade on a curve.

Originally Posted by macsci

They won't curve unless significant numbers of people end up failing. The labs and assignments were a joke and they'll bring everybody up at least 10%.

Again, this isn't necessarily "curving". Like I said before, true bell-curving is done before the class even begins - people are graded on the curve... the curve isn't applied afterwards. It's possible that this could be done, but more often than not if a course has a really low average (ie lots of failures) they will adjust the marks up across the board - not bell curve.

My friend told me that this year all the mid term grades for all the students in course Engineer 1D04 were increased by 10%.

I think the main problem here is just a matter of notation. I think in high school Data, I learned a true bell curve (applied after the fact) would imply that some of the higher marks would actually be reduced to meet it (in addition to the lower marks being raised and the medians staying relatively the same), and naturally this is against university policy.

From my understanding, what Taunton keeps trying to reinforce is that marks aren't "curved" (as in, adjusted to match the bell shape).

They are instead "shifted", so every student receives an approximately equal increase to their mark to raise the class average. This is the same as reducing the denominator of the class (so that instead of a final mark being out of 100, it's out of say, 97, effectively which raises a 70/100 to 70/97 = ~72.1%).

Either that, or there's an equal shift applied such as the one Kanishka mentioned, in which every student has their mark increased by a fix amount.

Anyway, my point is that when people say "curving", it's immediately known what the speaker's referring to even without explicit mention of marks (eg. "I'm gonna be pissed if this course isn't curved"), but although I prefer the word "shift", people don't immediately know what I'm referring to.

Holy overuse of parentheses in this post.

tl;dr version: Adopt a better word to use, kthx.

This is a perfect example of how people misuse concepts because they don't understand their true meanings.