Beaten by the curve
The letter grades for 2 subjects in Term 1 are out and I have lost an 'A' by less than 1% ....... so now I have to live with a 'B'!! The worst part is that anyone between 60% - 83% (which is 63% of the class ~ 263 students) get a 'B' ........... I know that this is a Normal distribution and this is how Normal distributions work but now I really feel like I have been Beaten by the curve!! So either I perform way above average or average, it doesnt matter ......... there is nothing in between.Has this motivated me to make that extra effort to get into the 'A' category? I am not sure because I believe that the Law of Diminishing Returns is at work here which means that for every additional increase in points, I will have to put increasing amount of effort ..... and the question to be answered is "Is it worth it????".
Anyways heres an interesting article on Grade inflation at Harvard
http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i30/30b02401.htm
posted by Yi Bhopal @ 2:08 AM
2 Comments:
If the idea is to maximize the net grades. It might be worthwhile to be more strategic in focus on subjects. Spend exorbitant amount of time on one subject to get an A (90% marks) at the same time study just hard enough to get a B (65% marks) in other.
The result would be A with 90%, B with 65% as opposed to B with 80% and B with 80%.
What you are saying is that excel in one and average in the other is much better than slightly above average in both. Totally agree .....
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