Is Grading a Scandal?

Is grading a scandal?

My views on the grading system

When it comes to grading you will either have a professor who grades positively or negatively. The positive professor will look at all your brilliant ideas and give you points to improve, and your other professor will just fuss over every single mistake they had come across. Is this fair? Well according to many schools they follow a system of inflation, where they grade students according to a curve resulting in higher grades. The professors are also limited on the amount of high grades they are allowed to give. Now this is all fits together, professors will look at your paper negatively because they need to grab every mistake in order to limit the A’s. Outstanding papers of course will receive an A, but the rest will be criticized for each error.

It seems to me that more professors are worried about giving their students poor grades then hoping they all score high. Through research I came across an article written by Professor Kumbaltz . "One semester I experimented with a new method of teaching in which I used more examples and explained the material more clearly. It was a disaster! My normal curve was hopelessly skewed. Too many students received high scores. So now I am deliberately more ambiguous in my lectures, I use fewer examples, and I am gratified to find that my exams produce normally distributed scores once again." I find this to be appalling, how a professor could actually admit to not teaching his class well. Not only our these inflation grades effecting us in the long run of not knowing how smart we really are, but it also affecting the way we are being taught.

Grading in my opinion varies on who your teacher is as a person, which I think is totally unfair. I believe every student should be given an equal opportunity to receive straight A’s throughout the entire semester. Of course, it appears to be possible as long as you complete all assignments, produce “perfect” papers, and receive high test scores. In reality receiving all A’s is extremely hard considering some teachers are set out there to fail you. When I was younger grades were what made me proud of myself. My grades were my shining star in my family, and they made me feel on top of the world. I remember receiving my first C and I was horrified, crying for days.