Where can I find class averages in each course? For example, I want to know what the class average was for AST101 and AST201. Also, do professors always have to do that bell curve grading system thing I keep hearing about? Do they do that for small classes, too?
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Course averages are not published and accessible to students (boo). Your best chance is to find someone who has taken the course, and ask them what it says in their academic history. Even then, ROSI only publishes course averages as letter grades rounded to the nearest +/-.
I took those courses in the 2004-5 academic year and the averages were both B-. However, don’t let that trick you into thinking that they are especially difficult. In place of critical analysis, these courses predominantly require the memorization of small facts. VERY interesting small facts, mind you. You may just look at the world differently afterwards.
What I’m saying is that if you are willing to invest some grunt work, anyone is capable of pulling off a set of stellar marks (pun intended).
In general, I wouldn’t use course averages as a good indicator of a course’s difficulty. They all seem to be C+ or B-.
The “Bell Curve”, not to be confused with the figure of (arguably) the hottest Disney princess, is very rare at UofT. It is a formula applied to a set of grades that are drastically skewed from the desired distribution. It almost always happens when grades are very low (ie. half the class failed a test), and it is enacted to bring these students to a pass. This should imply that the decision to use a bell curving system is retroactive, responding to an inappropriate means of evaluation (ie. you didn’t cover some of the test content). A Prof can’t dish out bell curves like they’re going out of style (ie. pixie cuts, shoulder pads, frosted tips, etc.). It is a serious decision that needs approval by the Departmental Chair.????
With that said, there is no policy which mandates professors to inform you that they have used a bell curve. With subjective forms of evaluation (ie. essays), Profs can distort marks to achieve a bell-like curve. This isn’t too shocking, as long as marks are fair relative to other students’ marks.
The already-rare bell curve is even rarer in small courses, where Prof are less concerned about finding the ideal distribution of grades.
Understood? Good.
2 Comments
Sarah
I took both of these courses last year and the class average was a B- in each… This may have something to do with the large class size and the fact that it is a science course catered to humanities students so may be unfamiliar to some students. I found this course to be quite interesting and fairly easy, but it is different for everyone. In fact, my highest marks were in both of these classes… It is quite possible to attain a high 90 in these classes if you do your work and study. I think what makes this course easier is the weekly quizzes, where you are given 3 chances and several days (with aid of your textbook and internet) to answer 10 questions… I was at first afraid that these weekly quizzes would be impossible and overwhelming, as it is daunting to transfer from highschool to university, but these quizzes were straight from the text and many of them were later recycled onto the exam. They were basically free marks if you took your time. Also, the assignments were group assignments, which helped alleviate the workload; however, make sure to check over your parnter’s answers as I know a lot of students simply assumed their parnters did adequate research, and while their answers were perfect, their marks were significantly hindered by the rest of the group. If this makes you uncomfortable, it might be better to just do the assignment yourself… It isn’t that hard and you can go for tutorial help where they will explain some of the math (if there is any… which there really wasn’t too much of at all)… The exams were based on sometimes smaller details, but were usually based on themes that appeared throughout the semester. Moreover, you are given an option on what quesntions you would like to answer, further helping you boost your mark. It is also helpful that the professors post some of their lectures online (but I would still reccomend attending lectures regularly)… the ideas in the classes I skipped went over my head but would have likely been made clearer in lecture. As tempting as it is to skip, try not to- even if it seems like a waste of time, I found in the long run, it helped me out considerably to hear the examples and to recieve further clarification. Also, remember to take notes on the key issues and ideas, as that will definitely help you study, and these notes can only be taken if you attend lecture. Hopefully these points will help you out in these classes if you chose to take them, which I do suggest you try them out in the first week as they are fairly easy and help you recieve your science credit. Also, having a second year course under your belt is useful and the course is basically the same skill level as the first year course (and lots of the ideas are overlapped)
Good luck!
Nada
Hey,
There’s also the anti-calendar taht you can pick up for free. Although it doesn’t show the class avrerages per se, it does show how the students ranked the difficulty, workload, etc. of the course as well as the teaching style of the respective professor(s). You might want to give that a shot when choosing electives.
Best of luck!