Mudd

During my stay at Harvey Mudd College, I became accustomed to something that was completely unfathomable during high-school: tests are hard. A good test does not allow students to achieve a perfect score, because as a measurement / assessment tool the test has ``maxed out'' on anyone that gets $100\%$. A perfect score means that we cannot really measure meaningfully how much more the student in question knows. So tests should be fairly hard.

If tests are made hard, we grade on a standard 90/80/70/60 scale as mandated by the department, and nothing is done to adjust scores, then it should come as no surprise that many students will wind up with very low ('D' or 'F') scores. The notion that a 'C' is average makes it tempting to ``recenter'' scores into the ``C-'' or ``C'' range. However, I chose during this course to behave as was common at HMC, and consider an average score on the exam to be worth about a B-. This represents mild grade inflation for exams, but coupled with an active policy of trying to catch people not doing assigned reading or coming late to class (which both counted as ``pop quizzes'' in the ``theory'' section of the grade), this is not unreasonable in my mind.