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Skeletor

I hate grades

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magicsofa said:

You love grades.

Pretty much. I never gave a shit about grades, only weather or not I passed. Okay, I never gave a shit about that either, but I probably should have.

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How do you letter graded people calculate your averages, anyway? Do pluses and minuses bear any meaning, or are they merely for artistic value (look how brilliant is that student, gotta give him A++)? Does A+++ really exist or is it only appearing in cartoons?

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printz said:

Do pluses and minuses bear any meaning

Not where I am. We get + and -, but they don't actually count for anything. It kind of ticks me off, since the difference between B+ and A- ends up being more than it should be.

Which is really my main problem with grades: people get shoved into one out of only 4 or 5 arbitrary categories. I'm all for a 1001-grade system (0.0% to 100.0%), since it's a lot more stressful whether you get an A or B, rather than whether you get 88.4% or 91.3%. The latter doesn't seem as different. People wouldn't be fighting to barely get an A instead of a B; they'd just be trying their best.


I think it depends on the particular institution, though. Some places have +/- that counts, and some don't have it at all.

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printz said:

How do you letter graded people calculate your averages, anyway? Do pluses and minuses bear any meaning, or are they merely for artistic value (look how brilliant is that student, gotta give him A++)? Does A+++ really exist or is it only appearing in cartoons?


A = 4
B = 3
C = 2
D = 1

No one ever got A+ in school unless they got 100% and did extra credit. A++ is just people making shit up. I have no idea if the pluses and minuses had any impact on our GPA. Anyway, I finished high school with a 1.8 GPA. Extrapolate from that what you will.

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Oh O_o. I can see why they can spark so much controversy, with them being only four values to choose. It seems less accurate than having 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 as allowed entries.

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I did used to love grades. In fact, I still love them just enough to derive some satisfaction by bragging that I was the first person in my high school to ace the AP calculus course (ie. 100%).

My high school didn't use letter grades or categorical tiers of any sort, but simply percentages. I think this is a more sensible way to grade students, in high school, anyway, as it may actually have been a source of motivation for me (and thus, potentially, for other students as well). Because a grade of 98% was considered as better than a grade of 92% I felt that it was rewarding to try to push that number as high as possible.

The universities I've been to use letter grades, but a system where plusses and minuses have significance. GPAs range from 0-4.5. A student with straight A-plusses would have 4.5, a student with straight As would have 4.0, etc.

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I'm not really ever bummed by grades so much as their grave implications. I loathe the notion that our intelligence and worth is determined by scores in institutions, but that seems to be the only true scientific proof of intelligence other than IQ tests (with the rare exception of "classic geniuses" such as Einstein). The "education" system irritates me because it fosters homogenization and ass-kissing, and seems to center around memorization and tedious "search and destroy" assignments...But at the same time, I'm really just bitter because I don't make the honor roll cut despite my efforts, which implies I'm unintelligent. Of course, a lot of potentially smart people like my dad did terribly in school, but often times that's because of sheer delinquency (screwing around, not showing up, not giving a shit, etc). When you're as serious as I am about it (even though I can't stand school), it's hard to chin up. I think a lot of it has to do with my terrible attention span: I hate being told to sit still, be quiet, face forward, and swallow a bunch of information for 1-2 hours.

My GPA isn't bad -- it's about 3.7 right now -- but it's not satisfying, especially for all the effort I put into it.

Also frustrating is the fact my cumulative GPA has more or less sat at the same spot for 3 semesters despite the fact that I got a 4.0 and 4.33 for the last two. It doesn't make sense. My semester GPA throughout all my high school years has mostly A's and some B's (I'm in my senior year now), and yet they've more or less kept me at the same spot the whole time. I sadly suspect that they count in weekly/monthly grade reports within those semesters, chronicling all my slumps/dry spells (I sometimes sink as low as a D before I come back up to an A in a semester) and counting it in to roughly bring me back to the same place I started, no matter how hard I try. Terrible.

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printz said:

How do you letter graded people calculate your averages, anyway? Do pluses and minuses bear any meaning, or are they merely for artistic value (look how brilliant is that student, gotta give him A++)? Does A+++ really exist or is it only appearing in cartoons?


In high school - not at all. A B is a B and an A is an A no matter what percentage it is.

However, in the University system, there is difference between + and - of about .3 grade points (An A = 4, A- = 3.7, etc). However, A+ doesn't make a bit of goddamn difference compared to an A... which, honestly, confuses the hell out of me.

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These days, grades are not the only important criteria that potential employers look for; experience, leadership skills and field certifications are also strongly considered.

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doomedout said:

These days, grades are not the only important criteria that potential employers look for; experience, leadership skills and field certifications are also strongly considered.

Aren't field certifications like grades themselves? :P That is, you take a test to get certified, and someone evaluates how you do.

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doomedout said:
These days, grades are not the only important criteria that potential employers look for; experience, leadership skills and field certifications are also strongly considered.

Or family ties :p

It's always been pretty much like this in the so-called business world. A degree may be required for some positions, especially if there's no experience instead, but grades matter less, if at all. Grades are particularly important in academic teaching and research.

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doomedout said:

These days, grades are not the only important criteria that potential employers look for; experience, leadership skills and field certifications are also strongly considered.


And the gift of the gab.

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Spleen said:

Aren't field certifications like grades themselves? :P That is, you take a test to get certified, and someone evaluates how you do.


Sort of - I'm in the finance field and CFA is strongly valued.

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its funny, they grade you for something you arent made to do originally, and they dont give a fuck about your other abilities, they only want one single thing ( the specific subject ) and they do not show what you can do elsoe, or what you know else, so if this entire system is based on school, work, subject, PAPER and number values, shit, guys, we are already in hell.

beacuse this shit is sick, on top of that, the misserable lady-ga-ga-mind-polution-with-acon-bacon-stripper-troopers.

it almost make me vomit.

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there are different systems of grading. I went to a canadian university that uses the 9-point system. 9, 8, and 7 are each the different varieties of A's. 6, 5, and 4 are each the different varieties of B's. my graduating gpa was just over 6.5, which is just between B+ and A-, closer to the A- side. I'm happy enough with it.

ps, the picklehammer is back after eight and a half years. thanks bloodshedder for unbanning me.

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D_GARG said:
its funny, they grade you for something you arent made to do originally,

You mean in back in paradise before the fall, or that grading how well we eat, poo, and pee (or fuck, in college) would be more suitable than how we do our math and history?

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myk said:

You mean in back in paradise before the fall, or that grading how well we eat, poo, and pee (or fuck, in college) would be more suitable than how we do our math and history?


actually we're more made for that you just gave examples of than what most subjects are. and history is easier than stealing candy from a 4 year old.

what I mean is that we're designed to live in nature, we've just eaten so much fish that our brains evolved faster than the rest of our body did. and our natures are too strong to put aside, so thats kind of why we need prisons and why some people never get a job even if they know, as the rest of us, that our own system supports them all the way trough to get education so they can after all the studies get a job, get a family and stay to the law, live happy their entire (at least mostly of their lifes) lifes And So On.


some parts of our brain is more evolved than others, and who is deciding what every body should study? the answer is: the top, the very most individually evolved brains in all the stuff that (we think) keeps our (more or less) "human" evolving go on. they only, decides whats true or not, beacuse they know it all best, dont they?
So, what about "the closest to the bottom"? what are they gonna do if they cant anything of what we're not designed to do? like maths and (ok, everyone knows a little of physics, like gravity, thats a 100% true fact, try dropping a pen to the floor) (more advanced)psysics?

You see, this world will never be fair, So Why Keep Trying To Get It 100% Fair?


Give me one single reason to keep this world as it is today with all the shit we have made just beacuse of too much OMEGA-3.

why should we even stay avay from natural selection? (today, its human selection that rules.)

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