Comment by dmonitor
19 days ago
> Students never get a 20/20. A good grade is a 16/20!
This right here I think is a huge factor. Pretty much every top student in my college classes and highschool were essentially just testbots optimizing for maxing out quiz and exams grades. They barely even grasped the material, they just pestered the teachers into telling the class what types of questions would be on the exams, memorized the formulas, and bitched incessantly when it wasn't 1:1 with what they were given. Professors also have to be super careful about what is on the exam because top grade being a 16/20 means the entire class is failing. The whole education system needs to be reworked to punish this kind of optimization that doesn't even reward knowing the material.
Exactly my experience in Belgium where we have a similar grade system. Teachers would give a list of questions in advance, students would just memorize the answers and repeat them at the exam. Most of them had absolutely zero understanding of the material.
Meanwhile, students who need to actually understand what they are learning (I can't memorize like others) before passing a test often end up with worse grades but a better understanding.
Absolutely broken system.