Grades Are In…
…and I’m laughing. Out of my three courses, two were all lecture then a massive final exam, which was the only grade. The third was writing and research, which had a series of assignments, feedback, and no final.
For the writing course and one of the lecture courses, I did quite well. The other I didn’t do so well. But overall the grades were good enough to put me at a pretty nice class rank…not that I’m too concerned about that, or the grades either.
The irony is that for the lecture course I didn’t do too well in, I studied very hard, read the cases several times each, attended every lecture, found the lectures interesting, participated in class and came out of the final feeling pretty good. I scored right around or slightly below the median.
For the other lecture course, I was routinely bored in class, didn’t read the cases too deeply, waited until the last few days to study, and essentially learned the course in those few days. I scored in the top 15% or so.
Go figure.
I have a theory about the grades. The course that I enjoyed probably just had a tougher curve. It was less material, easier to memorize, and the exam came first. It really wasn’t all too difficult. So more people did well and the class was curved appropriately. For the course I didn’t like so much, there was about 50% more material to learn and memorize, the exam was 4 1/2 hours long, and it came 9 days after the first one. It was inherently more difficult, nearly impossible to finish, and the students were just burnt out and tired at the point they walked into a marathon exam.
Or so I think. I’ll get copied of my exams soon and maybe I’ll determine otherwise. In the mean time I can’t complain, but I can continue laughing.