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Should the Grading Scale be Abolished?

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Stompman

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As some of you may know, students in the United States have a mental capacity that is not as good as other nations. In several nations that score better on standardized tests than the United States, the grading scale (A, B, C, D, F) does not exist. Instead, a pass/fail system is used, and it's based on whether a student tried to learn or not. Some people have argued that to improve students' mental capacity, the grading scale should be abolished and replaced with pass/fail here too. I support this theory for several reasons:

1. The grading scale does nothing to improve student's knowledge. By only requiring students to reach a certain grade percentage, students are not pushed to learn everything they should.

2. As stated in point 1, students sometimes don't have a will to learn. Some students are satisfied with a C grade, so they don't try at all and float by with an average grade.

3. Some students are naturally intelligent, and they do not require outside studying to learn anything. These students simply sit back and earn an A. However, at the same time, some students work really hard but only manage to get a D. This labeling has been known to cost people jobs, or get people jobs they don't deserve.

For these reasons, I support the abolishment of the grading scale and the introduction of the pass/fail system. What are your thoughts?
 

Legolas

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Well if we got the rid of the A,B,C,D, and F system was banned, it would be alot easier to pass school. Students wouldn't try as hard, becuase they know they were doing good and not failing. Over all I think we should keep the American grading scale, it makes American students work harder, and that makes them more ready for the life ahead of them.
 

Mr Freeze

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Not abolished,just changed.

It seems,to me,at least that people,especially parents,have lost hold of the real grading.

Look at it this way: A C is considered average by schools,but my parents go berserk if I get below a B -. It may just be me,but...Anyway,this is my point.

<small>[ March 31, 2002, 08:43 PM: Message edited by: Mr Freeze ]</small>
 

bball2012

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There are some serious flaws in the grading system. You can pass high school with a D. Something's wrong there. D means below average. But come on, like we'll ever get a president brave enough to override the grading system. For many kids, a B on a report card is like an average kid getting an F. It's unacceptable from their parents.

But making good grades in school is not about effort, it's about intelligence. So if you pass Student A for getting 10 answers right, but you fail the smarter Student B for getting the same number right, that's really not fair. Everyone should be judged on an equal level. Does this mean some kids will coast? Of course. But there are magnet schools for that. I'm in a magnet school now so I won't coast through the rest of my academic career. Kids can also skip grades, you know. But it's just not fair to grade on effort instead of intelligence.

<small>[ March 31, 2002, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: bball2012 ]</small>
 

Muffinman389

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I say that grades are not important at all, they have little or no meaning. They only tell what a person was like when he took the test/quiz/home work, etc. He/she could have had bad days, or other reasons. These mean nothing to me. Yet, I feel grades should be kept, as they are a goal to make (some) people try harder. Also, many people feel strongly about grades for some reason, so I feel that you can ignore them if you aren't for them.
 

Bumble Bee Tuna

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Grading on a scale of effort is ridiculous. The point is not whether you TRY to learn, but whether you DO learn. Our grading scale accomplishes this. I think it could use a change, though.

Current grade systems are supposed to have grades fall under a bell curve with C as average, and as many Fs as As. This is silly. An A should mean you learned almost all of the material, not that you learned the most material of the class. At Harvard they complain grades are being inflated because students average higher than Cs. If every student in the class does incredibly well, every student should get high grades. There should be some semblance of relation to competition, so that a B from Harvard would be better than an A from community college. But it needs to be based more in reality.
And enough with these college professors giving tests where they expect a high grade of a 30 out of 100, and then curve everything up 70 points. It's silly. Tests should be realistic.

To actually argue against the pro-pass/fail side:

1. The grading system we have DOES encourage students to do well. Sure, you can pass with a D. But that D won't get you anywhere in life. Higher grades get you into college, jobs, and scholarships. Meanwhile, a pass/fail basis doesn't encourage students to actually learn, it only encourages them to look like they're trying to learn.

2. Those students who coast by with Cs would also just coast by by pretending to be trying. It wouldn't be hard, you just do all your work, but do it poorly. Make it seem like you're really trying though. No harder than coasting by getting Cs. Except if you're doing that, chances are you did in fact learn the material but don't like wasting time on homework.

3. Your examples work against you.
If a student can learn without trying hard, then he is rightfully successful under our system.
If a student can't learn even with trying hard, then he is rightfully unsuccessful under our system. This system puts the naturally smart student at the top (we are judging intelligence here), and the naturally stupid student at the bottom. What's the problem? Isn't that what grading is supposed to do? Under the pass/fail system, the naturally smart students would either have to waste their time doing work that they don't need to do in order to look like they are trying hard, or else fail, whereas the naturally stupid students would pass when they really should be failing. Work ethic is a valuable trait, but school is meant to teach knowledge, not work ethic.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the reason why other nations do better in school is because they have much longer school years. The Japanese have no summer vacation. Furthermore, the culture over there is one in which you bring shame to your family if you don't succeed. Competition is fierce to get to higher education, so students have to try REALLY hard to do well. It's not due to the grading scale, it's due to the difference in culture.

-B

<small>[ March 31, 2002, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: Bumble Bee Tuna ]</small>
 

Stompman

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I agree that completely basing a new grading system on effort with pass/fail may not be efficient, but the current system certainly does not live up to what it should. Saying that our society rewards people based on how well they do in school is a false statement. Someone who works really hard, earns As all through high-school and college, gets a job as a doctor makes fractions of that which is earned by sports figures that didn't do well in school, and can potentially set a bad example for the youth of the nation. Also, people who are naturally smart but are lazy won't do as well at a job as someone of average intelligence but high initiative. My point is why don't we set up the people with high initiative to enter high paying jobs instead of lazy individuals who score well on physics tests.
 

Yavarice

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Grading has to be on a scale. As Bee already said, its what you actually KNOW that counts in the end. Even if you spend weeks pouring over physics notes, and in the end you still can't calculate the stress/strain in a steel cable, you sure as heck aint going to be putting together a suspension bridge that people have to drive over. If you want that job, then you gotta work for it and be **** sure you are qualified.
 

XDaDePsak

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that about sums up this topic, lol. thanks yavarat <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

<img border="0" alt="[Skull]" title="" src="graemlins/skull.gif" />
 
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