Understanding Grade Curving to Interpreting Your Exam Results

[JG89]

I recently had a midterm that was out of 120. My TA just sent an email to everyone saying "The exam grades currently going up are your UNCURVED marks. They will be curved up to 80/120 average, the average before the curve looks to be about 70/120 or a bit lower"

What exactly does this mean?

 

[ggucinski]

probably a gaussian distribution, so they'll give everyone + X amount of points so that the mean score is 80/120.

 

[jtbell]

Yes, the simplest way is to add a fixed number of points to everybody's raw score, but there are other ways to do it. Ask your TA about the exact procedure if you want to be sure.

 

[Bourbaki1123]

If you got a 70/120, you will have an 80/120. If you have a higher score it would probably be safe to assume your curve will diminish evenly until it is 0 at about 90% or about 107/120. If you got something like 95/120 maybe it will go up to 100. It's impossible to say exactly but you should be in the ball park if you estimate it like that. The curve isn't that big and the better you did the more negligible it will be. If you got upwards of a 90 you probably will end up with a low B. If you got upwards of and 80 you will probably get a very low to mid C. If you got a 70/120 you more or less bombed the test and will get a D+ even with the curve. Anything much below that is a low D or and F.