College Exam and Class Averages

[sanddrag]

What are the class averages for your college exams and classes? On the first physics midterm the average was 52% and on the second one it was 46%. In Chemistry 2, the class average for the overall grade is like 61%.

Are the averages in your classes ever this bad?

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I've heard my advisors tell me that their physics averages were in the D range for the exams and such.

Is it something you grow to expect?

[Clark Gilbert]

My classes have normally ranged from about 50% - 70%. I've had exams where if you got a 50%, the curve would give you a 92%. I've had one math class where the average on a few exams dipped into the 40%'s.

[tkwetzel]

Without knowing the actual class average but with some general knowledge of the grades in classes I doubt that any class I have taken had a class average below 70%.

[Jeff Waegelin]

In my Thermodynamics class this semester, the second midterm had a class average of 39%. That's the worst average I've seen in one of my classes. I've seen some 50's in other ME classes, and 60's in Physics last year, and I heard about, but was not in the Calc 2 class that had an exam average of 27%.

[Ashley Weed]

My first year as an engineer averages were horrible, sometimes bottoming out in the mid 30's for the course - which were weighted and then brought up to a C. So i.e. a 50 (F) would be a high B or better at times.

However, now in the School of IST, it is much different. Due to the way the curriculum has been (is being) developed, there is no "give". The classes are all projects (6-12 projects a term) plus a midterm and/or final. Your grade is your grade, no bonus, no weighting, nada. It's a very entrepreneurship world they are trying to design, usually graded by your peers (in class, additional onlooking classes) and several faculty and professional advisor's.

[sanddrag]

I don't know why instructors know that their class average is really bad (F) and then just "curve" or "scale" it to make it "okay" like C grade. I'm not saying they should fail most of the class, but when averages are this low, it is not the grading scale that needs adjusting. By scaling the grades, they are bypassing the real heart of the problem: the students are not learning or they do not understand the material. No playing around with numbers or letters will ever fix the fact that the students are not understanding as much material as they need to.

Say there is a 100 point test. Let's say the score is representative of mental ability. The class average comes out to be 12 pts. One student scores 30. Relative to the other students, this student would have superior mental ability. But relative to an ideal student, this student is a moron!

Say out of fifty people they each have an average of $10 in their pockets. One guy has $60 in his pockets. Relative to the other people, he is filthy rich! But when you see what little $60 can buy in the world, he is extremely poor!

If al of a sudden the average IQ of people in America dripped to 25, that would not make someone with an IQ of 50 be smart.

Just because a students is more capable than another, doesn't mean he is capable enough.