alt Hacker NewsAre those exams a contest? Like, they will only take the best N percentiles? Because if not, you’re competing only against yourself and should ignore others’ grades
Replies
Yes they are, that's what 'graded on a curve' means. It's common in the US to give students a percentile or Z-score or T-score rather than the raw score for the examination. This was a source of massive frustration to me when I first encountered because I had no way of self-reviewing my exam performance to guess which questions I might have gotten wrong.
I did not go to an Ivy League but many of my classes at an alright school were graded on a curve and so C was average, B/D was one standard deviation above/below, and A/F was two.
if they are graded on a curve then they are competing against each other.
> Are those exams a contest?
Yes
It's an incredibly privileged Pov to say it isn't a contest. These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores.