Are Grades Distributed Fairly English Language Essay

Are Grades Distributed Fairly English Language Essay Elliott Miles, a retired educator and university president, discusses a disturbing trend on college campuses: grade inflation. Before you read, think of these questions: In the American education system, what does a grade of A mean? A grade of B, C, D? What about a grade of F? In your university courses, what grades do most students receive? Do you think the grades are distributed fairly (1) Most American universities today still use the traditional grading system of A-B-C-D-F, with A meaning excellent, B good, C satisfactory or average, D unsatisfactory but passing, and F of course failing. While some feel that this system has shortcomings (too inexact, too artificial, too subjective), it does represent the possible range of a students work, and most students and faculty members are comfortable or at least familiar with it. So far so good. However, American universities since the mid 1960s have increasingly been affected by the problem of grade inflation. This refers to the tendency of many faculty members to over-evaluate the quality of a students work and consequently to assign her/him a grade higher than the work deserves. The reason this practice is called inflation, a term borrowed from economics, is that it resembles paying too high a price for a given item, for example twenty dollars for a loaf of bread. The problem is common among American universities, in cluding even our most prestigious institutions, such as Harvard. As Craig Lambert reports in his article Desperately Seeking Summa, the grade of A there accounted for about twenty-two percent of all grades in 1966-67, whereas by 1991-92 it had come to account for forty-three percent almost double. (2) The trend toward inflated grades began in the mid-1960s probably because that was a time of great unrest on college campuses in the United States. There were widespread student protests against the Vietnam War and civil authority in general, frequently with the support and participation of the faculty. Under these circumstances, grading standards began to shift for the worse. Faculty members became more and more unwilling to give students a D, let alone an F; the grade of C came to denote a minimal pass, B to represent satisfactory, and A to mean better than a B. Today, students and faculty alike have this new, watered-down system in their heads, although their universitys official grading policy may be unchanged from previous times. (3) Why is this a problem? After all, a student is unlikely to feel put upon if his/her work is over-valued. However, when a faculty member records that a student has done excellent work, when in fact the work might only be pretty good or merely fair, that faculty member has committed two faults. First, he/she has told a lie about the students work, misrepresenting the students achievements. How would we react if the misrepresentation went the other way if the student had done excellent work, but the faculty member assigned a grade of B or even C? This would strike us all as dreadful, yet faculty members who assign falsely high grades are showing equally faulty judgment. Inaccurate grading is inaccurate grading, no matter which direction it takes. (4) The second fault is that the faculty member has broken faith with all those who will be harmed by the dishonesty. Most obvious among these are the students who really did do excellent or good work. It is grossly unfair to students who earned real As or Bs if their accomplishments are devalued by the lax standards applied to others. To illustrate with an example from the workplace: would it be fair for two employees to receive the same raise when one had done excellent work and the other only mediocre? (5) Grade inflation also harms anyone who must evaluate a students record, such as admissions officers at other universities and at professional schools. For instance, medical and law schools never have enough spaces for all applicants and hence must choose only the best qualified. When admissions officers evaluate the transcript of a student who received inflated grades as an under graduate, they get a false idea of that students past performance as well as his/her potential for future success in a rigorous professional curriculum. For a similar reason, potential employers are harmed when they are presented with an inflated academic transcript; faced with seemingly equal candidates, they may give a desirable position to a less deserving applicant because they had a false understanding of that persons actual abilities. (6) And finally, our society at large is harmed because grade inflation undermines the integrity of the universities, which is one of our greatest assets. If university faculty members cannot be trusted to give an honest evaluation of each students academic work, public disappointment will inevitably set in and rightly so. The solution to the problem, though difficult, is simple: each faculty member should make a conscious decision to assign grades based on the actual quality of a students work, realizing that not every student will be able to earn the highest, or even the second highest, grade. One of my former students made the point very concisely in an essay that she wrote on grade inflation: Lets put the excellence back in the A. Author of article Elliott Miles Title of article Lets Put the Excellence Back in the A Title of the book Refining Composition Skills: Rhetoric and Grammar Author of book Reginal L. Smally, Mark K. Reutten and Joann R. Kozyrev Publisher Heinle Heinle Date 2001 Place Australia Choose one or more of the following questions to inspire your reader response paragraph. 1. How do the impressions of the audience change (or do they) after the second reading? Does the audience think any differently? Is the topic one that would make readers want to learn more? Why or why not? What is it that a reader would want to research for additional information? 2. Sometimes articles touch their audience, reminding them of their own life, as part of the larger human experience. Are there connections between the article and the audiences own life? Or, does the article remind its audience of an event (or events) that happened to someone they know? Does the article have a connection to a previous book or article? 3. If you were the author, would you have changed anything in the article and ideas? Do you have a negative connotation associated with the idea? What would you chance? 4. Does the article leave the audience with questions they would like to ask? What are they? Would the audience like to direct their questions at a particular character or an idea? What questions would the audience like to ask the author of the article? Are they questions that the audience may be able to answer by reading more about the authors life and/or works? What are the questions and how would they be answered? 5. Is there an idea in the book that makes the audience stop and think, or prompts questions? Identify the idea and explain the responses. 6. Has the article changed the reader in any way? The way you look at this theme or behave if you were to talk about this theme? What did you learn that you never knew before? 7. Capture what it is about the book that stands out (or doesnt stand out).

Kingdoms of Egypt and Nubia Essay

Historians once thought that the human race began with the white Greek and Romans. Present day archaeologists are telling us that the cradle of civilization is in the Nile Valley of Africa. Two rival kingdoms called Egypt and Nubia have much in common but they also have their unique differences. In my essay I will explore some of these similarities and differences. Egypt and Nubia were both ruled by monarchy, which shows that they had an advanced form of political organization. Archeologist’s findings show that the symbols of Nubian royalty are the same as those of Egyptian Kings. They believed that they were god-Kings and built large pyramids to spend eternity surrounded by there riches to keep them comfortable after death. The difference between the Egyptian and the Nubian monarchy is that the Egyptian monarchies were all male rulers but Nubians monarchies were both male and female and held power jointly. Egypt and Nubia both traded with other countries to acquire the goods they desired. Egypt had few natural resources but was involved in manufacturing glass, paper, perfume, cosmetics and fine linen fabric. Egypt wanted to trade these for the different products from Central Africa. Nubia had many natural resources such as gold, ivory, copper, frankincense, iron ore, hardwood timber, ostrich feathers, leopard skins and elephants. Nubia traded these along with their pottery and manufactured goods. The powerful, wealthy black Nubians Kings controlled the trade routes between central Africa and Egypt, which is one reason why Egypt eventually attacked and conquered Nubia. Egyptians and Nunians both believed in the god-Amun (the ram-head god). The Egyptians thought the silhouette of the mountain at Gebel Barkel looked like a cobra’s head which is a sign of royal power. They believed that the god-Amun lived there so they built a temple to him. Thus, it’s considered to be a sacred mountain, perhaps the holiest place in the Nile valley. It is where the pharaohs held their crowning ceremonies. The Nubians also believed the god-Amun lived in the mountain. When they conquered Egypt they called on the authority of the god-Amun. This was confirmed when archaeologists found a curving of a man making an offering to the god-Amun in the remains of a  large temple in Nubia. Both the Egyptians and the Nubians had a system of writing to record important events in their history. The Egyptians used picture writings called hieroglyphs that they curved on the temple walls and on tablets describing events in their lives. The Nubians used an alphabet called meroitic. Historians are hoping to understand this alphabet so that they will be able to read the Nubian’s writings and discover more about their culture. It is clear that the early African people were a politically organized, intelligent industrious, creative and civilized people worthy of our respect. Probably, due to racial prejudice, it was once thought that black Africans were not capable of producing high civilization. Nubia, the homeland of the earliest black culture may have been the home of the first human race on earth. Bibliography Edward Reynolds (1994) Focus on Africa: D.C. Health and company. CanadaWho are the Nubians? (Date N/A). Homestead. October 23, 2006. http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/nubians.htmlJamila, White. (1999). Black Kingdoms of the Nile episode 2. PBS. October 23, 2006http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_wondr4.htmJimmy Dunn (Copyright 1999-2003). The Yam of Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Tour Egypt. October 23, 2006. http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/yam.htm

Theoretical Perspectives and Research - 1441 Words

Introduction Modern, post-modern, critical theory and symbolic-interpretive are four different perspectives that provides different ways to analyse and understand organisations, however this essay shall focus on two perspectives, namely the modern and critical theory. These two perspectives have different views on concepts that might appear similar, thus this essay shall examine the different stands they each take. Concepts that can be examined include, power, control and conflict, organisational structures, organisations culture and organisation and its environment. This essay shall closely examine how the two perspectives have different views on the subject on power, control and conflict pertaining to the different ways to analyse and†¦show more content†¦267). An example would be the Japanese work-culture, they are powered by pressures from an intensively competitive economy and their organisational culture such as workplace efficiency and diligence thus resulting in a huge number of workers perpetually working overtime, causing an imbalance in their work life. In this case, workers are incapable to escape the hegemonies that are powerful, namely the management staff in the organisation. Modernists promote the rationale of managerial control because they view the members’ different interests as a problem that interferes with organisational goals and strategies. (Bolman Deal, 2008) states that control is the process of taking the necessary corrective or preventive actions to ensure that organisation objectives and missions are met as efficiently and effectively as possible. Therefore, modernist theorists sought mechanisms such as cybernetic and bureaucratic control for their employees in order for organisation interests to be met and self-interest to be minimized (Hatch Cunliffe, 2006). When organisations apply cybernetic theory, it explains how their executives align individual goals and organisational control using performance evaluation, resource allocation and through reward and feedbacks mechanisms (Hatch Cunliffe, 2006). They further stated that positive deviations were rewarded while the negative were usedShow MoreRelatedTheoretical Perspectives and Research1448 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction Modern, post-modern, critical theory and symbolic-interpretive are four different perspectives that provides different ways to analyse and understand organisations, however this essay shall focus on two perspectives, namely the modern and critical theory. 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Final Reflection On My Personal And Professional Lives

Final Reflection While registering for the semester I noticed this course and thought it would be very beneficial for both my personal and professional lives. I felt I was in need of learning new techniques and regimes to reduce stress, increase productivity, and learn to efficiently and effectively relax in order to improve my communication. I mean who wouldn’t want to learn how to relax and receive credit hours at the same time. With that being said I immediately signed up, and for once I was excited opposed to being nervous of the unexpected like I was for previous courses I have taken. Another perk to this class was seeing that Professor Mantel was the instructor. I had taken one of her workshop previously (Humor in Communication), and not only did I learn several beneficial ways to communicate through humor, but the workshop was very interesting and entertaining. 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