Grade inflation

[tesolin4languages]

Hello everyone!

I'll make this brief: I do not understand grade inflation, could some one do me the favor of explaining it to me?

I am in grad school (first real semester after one summer semester) and I am going crazy about grades.

The teachers give back assignments, and they come back with far from optimal grades, claiming rookie mistakes are the cause etc. We do have a chance to turn it back in for a better grade.

Could someone please explain to me how grade inflation works, and how to know whether my school uses it or not?

In my grad school I believe having more than two B's puts you on probation, something I need to avoid at all costs.

Thanks every1

TESOL

[ktel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation

A very comprehensive article, which I didn't quite expect. This should answer your question.

I would say if everybody is getting low grades, then you are NOT experiencing grade inflation. If YOU are just experiencing low grades, that's a separate issue. I'm not sure what you think grade inflation is, because what you're describing doesn't sound like it.

[tesolin4languages]

Thank you for that article!

To answer your question as to whether my school partakes in grade inflation, I am not sure yet.

I have received A's in all my subjects thus far (the ones taken over the summer).

As for the low grades thus far, everyone in the class gets bad grades the first time around, and gets a chance to redo it within 3 weeks based on the comments the teacher made.

According to your wikipedia article, "A teacher may improve evaluations by improving their teaching, but the strategy that comes most quickly to mind for achieving better evaluations is to give higher grades for assignments and exams."

Since I have not experienced more than one semester, which was not even a full semester, I am not sure whether all my five classes will give me an A.

The professors are really tough, and give no signs of easy grades. Maybe that comes in the end, once they round up the total grades?

Does that happen to anyone? (My situation of being pushed to the max, with no mention of good grades, handing back assignments, and then finally all A's at the end?")

Thanks for that article!

[eco_env]

In many grad programs, you have to maintain a high GPA to stay in the program, so grade inflation (in the sense that most students get A's and B's as long as they do the work) is common and accepted.

[tesolin4languages]

Thanks! If anyone else has more, I'd love to hear it!

[tesolin4languages]

Hello again.

After much revision and effort, we handed back an assignment, which originally received an F and we scored a 98% on our assignment.

While we worked hard on our revision, I wonder since grade inflation is an issue whether it was a deciding factor in our grade or not.

I hope this holds true for all of our papers that are to be handed in soon!

[Eigen]

I really think you don't understand what grade inflation is, given how you're using it.

Grade inflation isn't something that is "applied" or "used", it's a reference to a slow trend causing the average grades in class to rise over time, similar to monetary inflation. It's not a practice that a teacher, by and large, chooses to "participate in" or a program "participates in".

Those are explained by individuals being easy graders, or programs being easy on grading.

Additionally, grade inflation (as it's typically referred to) is something that is an almost exclusively undergraduate phenomenon. The fact that most graduate courses give As and Bs is a different (but I'd argue unrelated) subject.