When an exam is administered, it serves two purposes: to test how well the students understand the material, and to show whether they can apply that information, not simply regurgitate it.

Or at least, that’s what I thought tests were for. I always believed that students’ scores on tests reflected their understanding of the chapter or unit, along with the effort they invested in preparing for the assessment.

However, the idea of “curving” tests undermines my original belief. When the average score for a given test is subpar, that number is due to either one of two things: perhaps the students were underprepared, in which case the students are to blame, or maybe the teacher underestimated the difficulty of the test, which is a miscalculation on the teacher’s part. For experienced teachers, this misjudgment should rarely occur. They know the students’ abilities, they are aware of what types of questions the students are capable of answering, and most of the time, they know when a test is difficult.
In fact, what is worse than curving tests after the results have all been analyzed is when the teacher hands out an exam knowing that, in the end, the test will have to be curved. They have selected questions that exceed the students’ skill level; and while the students do need to be challenged in the classroom, tests are not the place for surprises. If the teacher honestly believes that these difficult questions can be solved by his or her students, then there should be no need to alter the grade.

For students who encounter these overwhelming exams, by the bottom of the first page, palms sweating and hearts racing with anxiety, they already have preconceived notions that point to failure; and while in reality, they may have scored in the “D” range, the number that appears in the grade report is a resounding “B.” It would be more reasonable to aptly test students’ knowledge, and at the same time, instill some hint of confidence that they can do well without any extra curves. That feeling of walking out of an exam knowing that you did well because you studied and will earn the appropriate grade on your own is a sentiment of bliss.

However, we have become so preoccupied with our grade. Despite a mediocre performance on an assessment, if the scaled grade looks good, then we’re happy. What happened to learning for learning’s sake? Is a letter grade a true proxy for how much we have learned and know? Earning a “C” that has been square root curved up to an “A-” seems to suggest that the student truly does understand the material, when in reality he or she may have missed key concepts. In fact, curving tests detracts from the quality student’s education; a student who performs poorly on a test and has the grade to prove it is more willing to attend an extra help session to review the material. For others, they are simply content with their “A-.”

But let’s face it, no one is complaining when they’re given a few extra points. For students, this just means a higher grade in the class; they are one step closer to that coveted 4.0 GPA. For teachers, it always looks great when all their students have passing grades—they’re most certainly doing their job fine, and they very well might be; yet, who’s to say for sure? It’s quite possible that what started out as a needs-based system has transformed into something teachers depend upon. But if we rely on curving as a fall back with each test where a class performs poorly, we lose the true purpose of tests we sought to achieve in the first place.