According to numerous teaching fellows, the tests also give students a way to benchmark their academic progress and clarify their understanding of core concepts with former Ec10 students who go over students' answers with them immediately after the test.
"It encourages students to keep up with the material," said teaching fellow Thomas K. Cheng. "Otherwise there's a huge incentive to fall behind until the exam."
How does a unit test affect my grade?
"For each unit for which you pass one test, your grade will be raised by 1 point on the 100-point scale that section leaders use to determine letter grades," the course's syllabus says.
But despite this apparently simple explanation, few students say they understand precisely how the program affects their grade-a confusion that centers around the "100-point scale."
Many students think a 100 point scale denotes the simple grading mechanism they remember from high school where an 88% would yield a B+.
But in Ec-10, the 100-point scale is an expression of each student's ranking in the class-so a student with a B+ could be in the 50th percentile.
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