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So you might be interested to know that universities in Ireland (and I think England, where we inherited our university system from), everyone aims for a 70% gr
by pbiggar 15y ago
So you might be interested to know that universities in Ireland (and I think England, where we inherited our university system from), everyone aims for a 70% grade. That's a "1st class honours" degree, and is basically the best you can come out with.
Below that is "2nd class honours, I" (colloquially 2.1, pronounced "two one")). With a 1st or a 2.1, you're considered a high achiever (like a good job, or grad school, might require a 2.1 or better). A 2.1 is between 60-70%. Pass is 40%, and exams are marked harder to make the numbers work. (I believe harder questions are asked than equivalent US universities, but that's just rumour, unless you really do get multiple choice questions in university).
It leads to interesting dynamics. In the Arts and Humanities, students are basically marked out of 80, with scores above that reserved for truly great work which is seen relatively rarely.
In CS or Mathematics, where you truly can answer perfectly, sometimes you can get close to 100% in a exam, which throws off the marking scheme. For project work though, 70% means "great job", and 80% means you've done something truly excellent. For my undergraduate thesis, a piece of novel research on sorting and branch predictors that I truly poured my heart and soul into for 6 months, I got 94%. The feeling at achieving that grade was truly exhilarating, in a way that it could never be if I people didn't normally get 72% for great work.
- joelhaasnoot 15y agoHaving attended an American high school but being Dutch, I know that this whole 100% thing is a very american, cultural thing. Here in The Netherlands we've decided as a society that you should aim high, but our grades are out of 10, and only top students actually get 10/10. The American system is built around the fact that if you do everything as required, you get an A+. Here, we reserve 10/10 for truely exceptional , over the top and amazing work. As such, exams are written to have harder questions...
- noonespecial 15y agoThe American grading system has a severe lack of dynamic headroom. The measurement system saturates at 100% for even mediocre effort and there is no way to measure achievement beyond that. I once argued in a paper at university that we needed a logarithmic grading system like decibels. I got a C.
- duncanj 15y agoBrilliant. I hadn't considered the similarity of US grading and grade inflation to the loudness wars.
- AretNCarlsen 15y agoLogarithmic in both directions (from average), or do we throw away information for either the brightest or the slowest students? Do we not have enough storage bits available for a linear representation?
- polshaw 15y ago> unless you really do get multiple choice questions in university Having gone through the UK university system, i can honestly say that multiple choice questions can be some of the hardest questions there are (not that I ever had any on 'finals'). They can instill doubt where otherwise there was none, and a subtle, minor change can screw you over.