Your grade scheme is three tests, all worth 1/3 of your total mark. You have a great student who participate in class, never says anything redundant.

His test scores are: 92, 89, 67. You know that 67 is an aberration, would you still include it in the total grade calculation? Drop it? Weight the grades a different way?

Just curious.

You include it because that's the mark he got on the third test. You can't just sweep something under the rug because you don't like it.

Originally Posted by L_Blankfein

Your grade scheme is three tests, all worth 1/3 of your total mark. You have a great student who participate in class, never says anything redundant.

His test scores are: 92, 89, 67. You know that 67 is an aberration, would you still include it in the total grade calculation? Drop it? Weight the grades a different way?

Just curious.

I would include it.
I'm assuming all three tests covered different material. If that's the only mark you have to reflect a student being tested on that material, you can't say if it's an aberration.
Anyways, eliminating 30% of your grade is a pretty drastic change, especially if it wasn't written into the course outline previously.

I was in a similar situation where I wrote a midterm when I was really really sick, and did poorly on it. There were also issues with the way the midterm was written (it was written so that you would lose more marks for a wrong answer than you would gain for a correct answer) so in general people did badly on it also - average was in the fifties, whereas it was in the seventies for the previous midterm. The prof refused to allow the weight to be moved to the final exam. I was pretty annoyed, for a few reasons.

First, I honestly believe that the test was unfair and something should be done to fix it. The other two reasons are my own fault, so I was more annoyed with myself than anything else, but I wish I hadn't written the midterm while being so sick (and if I had known how unfair the grading scheme would be, I definitely wouldn't have written it, but we weren't told that ahead of time), and I wish I read the course outline better, because it was my only course that term where the weight of other course components wouldn't be moved to the exam. Since nearly all of my other courses in the previous year and that year had a grading scheme like that, I just assumed this course would too, so I figured I might as well try to write the midterm because I had nothing to lose.

Anyways, it cost me a grade point, and I was 0.6% away from a ten in the course. So I'm still very annoyed, but the prof's logic was that it wasn't fair to students who studied hard for that midterm and did okay, and I can understand that too. If the grading on the midterm wasn't so ridiculous, it probably wouldn't have even been an issue anyways. (It was like...a bunch of true/false questions where you would lose 1.5 marks for a wrong answer and only gain one mark for a correct answer) But I chose to write the test while really sick, I was stupid enough to misread the course outline, and the mark shouldn't be disregarded because of either of those factors.

It's a bit different from the situation you described because the course has an exam that would cover the same material as the test.

Sounds like anatomy. Dropped a few quiz points because they made mistakes on the questions - questions I got right - and it cost me a whole letter grade.

Keep it, unless an alternate scheme was proposed earlier.

Otherwise, we can ask the dual question: what if a student had 50s in everything but one test, where they got a 90? Should the professor not include the "aberration"?

Originally Posted by Mahratta

Keep it, unless an alternate scheme was proposed earlier.

Otherwise, we can ask the dual question: what if a student had 50s in everything but one test, where they got a 90? Should the professor not include the "aberration"?

That is a stupid retort. That hypothetical scenario is hyperbole, not realistic at all. Good try, though.

Originally Posted by L_Blankfein

That is a stupid retort. That hypothetical scenario is hyperbole, not realistic at all. Good try, though.

Why is that not realistic? I know people who have done that sort of thing before.

Totally realistic! Everyone goes back in September all enthusiastic, still going to their classes religiously, and thus rocks the first midterm. Suddenly ennui hits a good chunk of those people stop showing up and their grades reflect it. Happens all the time.

Originally Posted by Kudos

Totally realistic! Everyone goes back in September all enthusiastic, still going to their classes religiously, and thus rocks the first midterm. Suddenly ennui hits a good chunk of those people stop showing up and their grades reflect it. Happens all the time.

Right, so you get two terrible grades, then one good one?

Maybe they were slacking in the beginning, realised they need an 8.5 GPA for grad school, and pulled their skates on?
I've seen it happen.

Originally Posted by Zebedee

Maybe they were slacking in the beginning, realised they need an 8.5 GPA for grad school, and pulled their skates on?
I've seen it happen.

Lol, which prestigious grad school requires an 8.5 GPA?

Originally Posted by L_Blankfein

Right, so you get two terrible grades, then one good one?

I don't see why that is any less likely than someone getting two good grades and one terrible one.

I know in my high school, in grade 12, they started doing this thing called "best/most recent" where if you had a random low mark like that they'd drop it, but if you had one really good mark at the beginning and then did poorly for the rest of the term, they'd drop the good mark at the beginning. I don't think either is fair.

Originally Posted by starfish

I don't see why that is any less likely than someone getting two good grades and one terrible one.

I know in my high school, in grade 12, they started doing this thing called "best/most recent" where if you had a random low mark like that they'd drop it, but if you had one really good mark at the beginning and then did poorly for the rest of the term, they'd drop the good mark at the beginning. I don't think either is fair.

Poor way to lend credence to your poor idea. This is not HS, as you know. Exercise some prudence to answer this question, "Which is more likely? Two good grades, and one poor one. Or, two poor grades, then an exceptional one?"

bro, this shouldnt even be a question. lots of classes have 2 midterms and a final. should they all begin dropping their lowest mark also? hell no. youre lookin to drop 1/3 of your grade in a course. thats stupid.