My second physics midterm was returned today. I got a score above the mean. I am happy+relieved.
I also found out that the class is going to be curved so that a 60% average is an A-/B+. That’s pretty crazy considering what the score would be if class was graded on a straight-scale (like many programming classes).
However, setting such a low score as an A-/B+ does beg a question: why make a class so hard? What insight does a professor gain by making a test so difficult that everyone does bad on it? There will be outliers, of course, who either benefit or suffer tremendously, but in my experience, extremely difficult tests only benefit those who would have done poorly either way. Not only will those students gain the benefit of the doubt from graders, the mean will also be so low that the few points they do manage to gather will count for much more.
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