From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila

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Test scores

Test scores

From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila

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Test scores

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- [Instructor] I've taught a lot of college classes, and a lot of college students. Things I've discovered. Students generally dislike exams. If it makes you feel any better, teachers dislike writing them, almost more than grading them. And, then there's the griping that follows. In most classes students see two scores, their individual score and the classes overall average score. Simple stats, one data point versus one type of center for the data. Average is calculated by adding up all the individual student test scores and dividing them by the number of students. In many cases, struggling students like to point to the average as evidence that the exam was too difficult. Good and great students alike, will also tend to agree with this observation. Everybody wants a curve. Look, sometimes exams are difficult, but sometimes the average isn't the best way to look at the data. Suppose we had 25 students and these were the exam scores, the average is 69.4%. But, by arranging the data you…

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