Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dartvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!dartvax!scot From: scot@dartvax.UUCP (Scot Drysdale) Newsgroups: net.college Subject: Re: Grade Scales? Message-ID: <2439@dartvax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 10:57:02 EDT Article-I.D.: dartvax.2439 Posted: Mon Oct 1 10:57:02 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 2-Oct-84 06:20:14 EDT References: <2100001@ea.UUCP>, <12500004@uokvax.UUCP> Organization: Dartmouth College Lines: 21 estions require applying principles to new situations. Some of these applications are easy ones, most are moderately difficult, and usually one is taken from a recent research paper so is very hard. On this type of exam 80% can be a solid A and 50% a respectible C. (The handful of students who get close to 100 get rave recommendations to graduate schools.) The choice of questions and partial-credit policies can make the numerical scale come out wherever the professor chooses. The measure of the quality of an exam is how well it measures student understanding, not whether the outcome follows some pre-ordained distribution. (I do think that students should have some idea of how difficult you think the exam is and what your expectations are before they take it, so that they do not panic when they cannot solve half the questions on an exam where you expect most students to be unable to solve half the questions.) Scot Drysdale (scot @ dartmouth)