November 22, 2004

Queer grading system

My results are out, I've got 8.43 (667 out of 800). No one is able to predict TCE exam results, a puzzling one for decades. The results this time is good for everyone, I suppose.

The grading system in TCE is strange. Lemme try to explain. The one whose total score is higher than someone else gets (most of the times) a lesser grade than the other one. This time it happened to me and has hit me down. The grading system goes like this,


Marks Grade Points
90 - 100 S 10
80 - 89 A 09
70 - 79 B 08
60 - 69 C 07
.. goes on ..

That is, for example, if one gets his mark in the range (60 to 69) the grade will be C and so on for others. The serious point to note here is that, there is no difference shown between the students whose socre lies in the range 60 and 69. Both of them gets the same grade. Consider a situation, where the student A get his marks as 79 and 79 in two papers and student B gets 70 and 80 in the same respective papers. The total of student A will be 158 and that of student B will be 150. But when compared under the grade system students B (17 points) gets a higher grade than student A (16 points). This should not be the case and it seems to undergrade some students. This has happened to me this time and has happened to many of my friends (myself too) in the last few semesters. I donno whether the grading system is taken from Anna University. Who should be blamed for this ?? Has the officials not noticed abt this and no actions were taken ??

2 comments:

Balamurugan,S said...

Thats correct...Grade system must changed.

Da Rodent said...

Well, the point of having a grading system is to abolish a marginal competition. It is basically to level you in some category. Not to rank you. However, it is obviously stupid to rank the grades. I dont know whether TCE is doing it., but if you people are ranking yourselves then you are the ones who are being misled.

The grades are supposed to convey a overall gross performance of the student. Without grades there is no way to actually judge a student's overall performance. See, for example. Suppose you have three papers math, english and physics. Now, you may be good in english but bad in math. That means, you'll compensate your score with the percentage you obtain in english. That would leverage you with someone who was better than you in math. Now supposing the educational system wants to emphasize importance to math more than physics and english.. they allot credits accordingly. i.e. say, they give math 8 credits, then 6 to physics, and 3 to english. Now, it is obvious that english is not such an important subject. So, when you get the results, your performance in math and phy will account more than english.

You guys must see the beauty of the system before arguing about it. The system is flawless.. the perspective is not.