Jan 20, 2009 07:28
15 yrs ago
3 viewers *
English term
screw up the bell curve
English
Art/Literary
Education / Pedagogy
Timmy the american high school nerd is studying hard, because "He's trying to score 110 percent and screw up the bell curve for the seniors in the class."
Now, I'm translating this for a European country where this system isn't used. If I understand well, Timmy is trying to get a score above the planned standard, which will force the teachers to make tests more hard and thus making things more difficult for those in the last year (that aim for a good score in order to go in a good university)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_curve_grading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student
Is this correct? How would you rephrase such sentence in order to remove any reference to the US school system?
Now, I'm translating this for a European country where this system isn't used. If I understand well, Timmy is trying to get a score above the planned standard, which will force the teachers to make tests more hard and thus making things more difficult for those in the last year (that aim for a good score in order to go in a good university)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_curve_grading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student
Is this correct? How would you rephrase such sentence in order to remove any reference to the US school system?
Responses
Responses
+1
33 mins
Sven Petersson
Sweden
Sweden
Native in English
&
English
Sweden
Medical Translator
Native in: Swedish 
, English
Works in: English to Swedish, Danish to Swedish, German to Swedish, and 13 more.
Related KudoZ points
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4
Selected
invalidate the normal distribution
Any value outside the range 0-100% invalidates the distribution.
I have seen this happen once on a test at university. There were 8 qustions and one could score pass or fail on each, so the range was 0-8. One of the questions was not part of the syllabus (=invalid), so the range was reduced to 0-7, but one clever clog had studied so hard that he coud, and did, firmly state that the question was not part of the syllabus (he also provided a correct answer). He could not be denied a perfect 8, i.e. a score of 114%. the normal distribution was thus invalidated.
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Note added at 36 mins (2009-01-20 08:05:10 GMT)
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Sorry about the typos!
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Note added at 45 mins (2009-01-20 08:14:13 GMT)
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Addendum:
Answer to Asker's question.
The professor could not use the normal number crunching formulas to assign grades; he was forced to use common sense!
I have seen this happen once on a test at university. There were 8 qustions and one could score pass or fail on each, so the range was 0-8. One of the questions was not part of the syllabus (=invalid), so the range was reduced to 0-7, but one clever clog had studied so hard that he coud, and did, firmly state that the question was not part of the syllabus (he also provided a correct answer). He could not be denied a perfect 8, i.e. a score of 114%. the normal distribution was thus invalidated.
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Note added at 36 mins (2009-01-20 08:05:10 GMT)
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Sorry about the typos!
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Note added at 45 mins (2009-01-20 08:14:13 GMT)
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Addendum:
Answer to Asker's question.
The professor could not use the normal number crunching formulas to assign grades; he was forced to use common sense!
Note from asker:
| Thanx sven. Can you tell me what are the consequences when the distribution is invalidated? |
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Suzan Hamer
: And must say, love your profile, Sven. Miriam Makeba! (And in tempo with the "beating" heart valve, is it?) How do you do that? And "Rem tene verba sequentur." Perfect!
39 mins
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Thank you very much!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Cheers"
+2
17 mins
make everyone else look bad
one option
The idea with screwing up the bell curve is not that the teachers will make the test harder, but instead that they adjust the grading on the test with the result that other students will see their grades shifted downward. The bell curve method is based on the idea that the grades on a test should follow a standard statistical distribution, so the actual results are converted to a scale along the bell curve (Gaussian distrigution) and then assigned corresponding grades (marks).
The idea with screwing up the bell curve is not that the teachers will make the test harder, but instead that they adjust the grading on the test with the result that other students will see their grades shifted downward. The bell curve method is based on the idea that the grades on a test should follow a standard statistical distribution, so the actual results are converted to a scale along the bell curve (Gaussian distrigution) and then assigned corresponding grades (marks).
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Gary D
: The bell curve is a graph shaped like a bell, and it is divided in sections.Example: in the top of the bell are the top 2%where a line is drawn, under the line is the next 10% etc etc
6 mins
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| agree |
Tina Vonhof (X)
: To make it totally clear, I would still begin with 'to screw up the distribution of scores' and then 'to make everyone else look bad'. But that way you are not assuming that people know what a Bell curve is, nor do you have to explain it.
9 hrs
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26 mins
to influence the regular / common results
Yes it is correct.
To score very high.
To score very high.
1 hr
to make it funny. We all have a different level of humour...
"He has a goal of scoring 110 percent, turning the class senior's fantasies of bell curve segregation, into a total screw up!"
1 hr
Alexandra Taggart
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Native in English
&
English
Russian Federation
proficient translation
Native in: English , Russian
Works in: Russian to English, English to Russian, English
he is changing the shape of the bell curve by getting 100% in every subject
"Bell curve"- a graphic form of distribution structure of grading. A quiet student is altering it.In education, grading on a bell curve (or simply known as curving also called the Gaussian distribution), whose graphical representation is referred to as the normal curve or the bell curve. Because bell curve grading assigns grades to students based on their relative performance in comparison to classmates' performance, the term "bell curve grading" came, by extension, to be more loosely applied to any method of assigning grades that makes use of comparison between students' performances, though this type of grading does not necessarily actually make use of any frequency distribution such as the bell-shaped normal distribution.
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Note added at 2 hrs (2009-01-20 09:44:07 GMT) Post-grading
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"To screw up" in this sentence means "to alter":http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=239169
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Note added at 2 hrs (2009-01-20 09:44:07 GMT) Post-grading
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"To screw up" in this sentence means "to alter":http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=239169
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