How Grading System affects Attitude to Examinations in Tsinghua University
By Raymond on Feb 28, 2009 in Exams and Tips
清华大学的学生对考试的态度如何受考评制度的影响
Let me share my exam report for my last semester.
Compared with other universities, students in Tsinghua care a lot more about exam score. Besides that they were selected through a very keen competition of advanced level exam in high school, an important factor which is often overlooked is the grading system: (1) 100% grading is used instead of GPA; (2) a weighted average score is calculated and used for ranking among the students in the same department. What does ranking mean? It means comparison. Comparison is not necessarily bad. It can serve as a catalyst of improvement. However, it becomes dangerous when comparison itself becomes the only goal. Here, ranking is the root of the problem, while the 100% grading system aggravates it. Students try their best to get every score they can get in order to raise the rank a little bit. If their average is lower than 80, they are among the bottom 10%. If it is higher than 90, they are top 10, a great honor. Most students feel nervous about that. Those with low scores are afraid of being the lowest, and those with high scores are afraid that they are not high enough compared with others.
A very interesting thing is that there is even ranking for every course we take. What does such a ranking mean? It means nothing, but the numbers are really attractive to the students who have been conditioned to be very sensitive to scores. Every student is different, and thus incomparable. Students have different fundamental knowledge and past experience, leading to fundamental difference in score. The most important indicator should be how much we really learn from a course. When I feel that I have really done well in a course, even though I may obtain only 80 in exam, I give myself a 100.
oh, u changed the style of the webpage.
Yes, I agree. What we are after should be knowledge rather than marks. You said some students self-study the prerequisite knowledge for an advanced course and postpone a difficult basic level course to year 4. That is too ironic!
Raymond Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I changed the style to make the website more user-friendly and let me update in a more convenient way.
Actually, it turns out that many students who postpone difficult courses to year 4 do not study well due to poorer fundamental knowledge.
Andrew Lee Yik-Chun | Feb 28, 2009 | Reply
How Grading System affects Attitude to Examinations in Tsinghua University | Raymond’s College Life at Tsinghua University, Beijing China 清华大学的校园生活 adler@gigemail.net
Carlton | Jun 24, 2010 | Reply