Mr. Zhou has given his unit test in Social Studies, and his students obtained the following scores (in percentages):

Question

38 38 59 62 67 67 71 72 74 74 77 78 78 80 82 82 87 86 87 89

Mr. Zhou's absolute grading standards apply a 90% cutoff for an A, an 80% cutoff for a B, etc.
Mr. Zhou is questioning his grading system after examining these grades. Describe the problem he faces. Describe Mr. Zhou's alternative for interpreting these test scores. In other words, what other basic approach to grading standards could he apply to the test results? How would the letter grades be affected? Describe one drawback to this change in grading standards.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Mr. Zhou's students performed poorly on his test. No student received an A, possibly because the test was inappropriately difficult.
Mr. Zhou could apply relative grading standards, assigning A’s to students scoring in the high 80s, B’s in the 77–82 range, and so on. If Mr. Zhou's test was actually not difficult, though, the relative grading standards may inflate the grades; and if everyone scores high on the next test, there may be students who receive low grades for high scores, under the relative grading standards.