Greg Bernhardt said:
How is 50% passing? In my schooling 50% was a bad failure. 70% was like a D-
I think most schools consider 60-69.9999... to be a D
and anything under 60 an F.
What Jason is saying is that if you score well on one test, you could not even show up for the other three, get an automatic 50% for those, and still eek by with a 60% D- in the course...a horrible grade, but enough to advance to the next grade with absolutely NO knowledge of the subject other than the content of one exam.
I've always preferred a system where consistent improvement is considered. For example, IF a student improves their scores on every exam, consider dropping the first exam score. If it's just a first exam holding them back (especially if you include a cumulative final exam where they need to have gone back and learned that early material again if they didn't get it the first time around), that process will allow them to still pass if they took it as a wake-up call to study better and work harder. If dropping the first one still isn't enough for them to pass the course, then they have more consistently failed to master the subject matter sufficiently to advance, and should still fail.
I've also known instructors who will just drop the lowest exam, no matter which one it is, giving the students the benefit of the doubt that they might have had one bad day happen to fall on a test day...not feeling well, too tired, dog died, whatever. I'm not as fond of that approach, because I've seen students do well throughout a class, and then not even bother with the material for the last exam because they know they have the grade they want based on the first few exams. This gives them an unfair advantage in their other classes if they don't have to study for one of their finals that everyone else still needs to study for, so have more time to study for the other courses. It also means they're more rested going into their final exams. More importantly, it means they didn't learn anything in the final section of a course.
But, either of those approaches will give a student a chance to make up for a bad exam or bad day if they otherwise have their act together, without leading to a ridiculous amount of grade inflation.
I think if someone told me I had to adhere to such a stupid policy, I'd add a course policy that students needed to pass a certain number of the exams in order to pass the course, regardless of their overall score. For example, if I gave 4 exams in a course, I'd state that they must pass 3 of the 4 exams. 50% isn't passing. We do this in our professional programs that have combined lab and lecture courses...even though they get one grade for both the lecture and lab component, in order to advance in their program and pass the course, they have to get a minimum of 70% on EACH part. That's so they don't spend all their time acing the written exams and blowing off the lab part, or vice versa, and eek by with a pass without having put real effort into half the class.
