Ever since Asians started succeeding academically, America has sought to prove that grades aren't a legitimate means of evaluating students.
Sure, they're not perfect, but everything else is fraught with bias.
Sure, they're not perfect, but everything else is fraught with bias.
In England, A Levels have gotten to the point where each year more people get an A for a subject than the previous year. This is analogous to the Soviet harvests beating each preceding years. Not they have A* grades or some such derivative to say that it's a "real" A grade.
that's incredibly inaccurate and naive
Creativity and teamwork can't be gamed. But they can't really be tested either.
Grades are generally not achieved (in the US) by taking exams. The whole point of grades is to produce a different set of results than standardized tests do; your grade is a composite of exam scores, homework completion, the amount you talk in class, and the amount you press the teacher for a better grade, all weighted at the teacher's discretion. The weighting applied to you may be different than that applied to your classmates. It is very much not the norm for low test scores to translate into a low grade as long as the student asks for more credit and is willing to complete makework assignments.
I'm a student at University of Waterloo in Canada and I've frequently seen (and taken) courses where exams (midterm and final) make up 90% or more of your grade.
Once I received an exam back, saw that a question had been marked wrong, and went to ask the professor about it. He explained to me how I was wrong, and then changed my score as if I had been correct, even though I wasn't.