I'm wondering if anyone has taken any 2nd year biology courses that were bell curved, and if so, how much did your marks improve when that happened (and which courses specifically were bell curved)?
Thanks

Originally Posted by The Effekt

I'm wondering if anyone has taken any 2nd year biology courses that were bell curved, and if so, how much did your marks improve when that happened (and which courses specifically were bell curved)?
Thanks

Just because a course have been bell curved in the past, doesn't mean it will be in the future. The instructors are required to have a certain average for a course and the bell curving occurs as a result of what level the students in that course are at. If they need a final average of 60% and the average comes out to 50%, then and only then is a course bell curved. No one cares about the individual marks if the average works out.

Originally Posted by AmyLia

Just because a course have been bell curved in the past, doesn't mean it will be in the future. The instructors are required to have a certain average for a course and the bell curving occurs as a result of what level the students in that course are at. If they need a final average of 60% and the average comes out to 50%, then and only then is a course bell curved. No one cares about the individual marks if the average works out.

It's not actually bell curved (in like 99% of the cases, Mowicz knows 1 prof that somewhat bellcurved), all the marks are just shifted to the right so the curve actually stays the same.

Originally Posted by jhan523

It's not actually bell curved (in like 99% of the cases, Mowicz knows 1 prof that somewhat bellcurved), all the marks are just shifted to the right so the curve actually stays the same.

Oh, just as well I guess. Marks still go up. I don't care about the process so much as whether it benefits me.

Originally Posted by AmyLia

Oh, just as well I guess. Marks still go up. I don't care about the process so much as whether it benefits me.

Bell curving doesn't mean that all marks go up though.

Originally Posted by AmyLia

If they need a final average of 60% and the average comes out to 50%, then and only then is a course bell curved. No one cares about the individual marks if the average works out.

Actually it is more complicated than that. Suppose in some crazy hypothetical course, an equal number of students get 100% and 20% in the course, so the class average is 60%. This isn't good because half the class would receive a failing grade...so the prof would still have to adjust the marks in such a course, despite the average being ok.

The course needs a good mean, median, and a sufficiently low number of failures. Also, the point jhan's making needs to be considered as well: after adjusting course grades, no students mark can go down. (a "Bell Curve" would penalize some students who scored really high).

If the hypothetical course above were bell-curved, the average would actually stay at 60%, but the people who got 100% would actually get a lower grade (probably 70%, but it depends how much the prof shifts them), while the students who got 20% would get 50%. I haven't worked out the specific numbers, but they would compress together in order to reduce something called the standard deviation (or how far apart the marks are).

As jhan is suggesting, this is unfair and wouldn't happen. The prof would instead just shift the lower marks up without penalizing the 100% students. So in short, whether or not a prof adjusts grades depends on the _distribution_ of the grades...so the profs do definitely care about individual marks.