Grades on final exam

We faculty give out letter grades for the semester, and my practice has usually been not to give letter grades on exams or homework and just concentrate on points. However, if I were to give a letter grade on the final exam this semester -- 90 points or more for an A, 75 for B, 60 for C, 50 for D -- then the proverbial "curve" of letter grades would look like this chart (above). This includes only the final for students who took all three exams.

Comments:

1. Performance is skewed toward the high end shows in that there were more B grades than D grades.
2. Because performance is skewed toward the high end, if I graded "on the curve," it would rip off the students in the middle and the high end who busted their you-know-what to bring their grade up.
3. It was a tough test to ace, yet relatively few students got an F on the final.
4. There were a TON of C and B grades.
5. All together: it was a tough but reasonable and not completely impossible final exam.

Overall: Most of you worked faithfully and very hard this semester and brought up your exam scores: 64% of the class did better on the final exam, percentage-wise, than they did on midterm 1.

That being the case, most of you have done the proverbial "yeoman's job" this semester in a tough course. My hat goes off to you.