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Rant; I've been sick emails

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    #32
    Musefan
    Registered Users Posts: 775 ✭✭✭Musefan


    In the school of Psychology, everybody loves bell-curves :rolleyes: (!). We were presented with bell curves of our group results, and low and behold, they were very beautiful approximations of a normal curve. Whether it happens naturally that way (I do believe it does, when one takes in the level of difficulty of the exam being enough to tax the moderate students, difficult for the bad students and easy for those who have substantial preparation). It was quite a lovely moment to observe that perfect looking curve :D


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    #33
    parker kent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,289 ✭✭✭parker kent


    Ficheall wrote: »
    How many of you have marked, or know first-hand of people marking exams on a bell-curve?
    Statistically speaking the scores are going to be normally distributed, regardless of whether the markers are for some strange reason trying to fit scores into a bell-curve.

    More often than not examiners try to give as many marks as possible.


    OT - Why not send them back the wrong info?

    I have experience correcting and I'm good friends with tutors who correct regularly and it is pretty close to what you say. I would imagine that 80% of UCD graders think along the lines of giving as many marks as possible.

    But there does exist examiners who like giving out a certain amount of certain grades, but they are by far in the minority. That results in an informal bell curve. They are not thinking "Oh I must get my scores in a bell curve". They are just thinking along the lines of "I only give 10% of the class at most an A". But that is a mainly idiotic and simplistic approach to grading.

    But that is a world away from institutions where bell curves are formal parts of the grading scheme.


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