Marks, Grades and GPA

Grades

The marks, grades and GPA we achieve within university represent a direct reflection of our ability (whether to work, knowledge of the unit, nerdiness). As of right now, the final examination of one of my units consists of 60% of my overall grade, sixty, sixty, SIXTY. That means if I ace everything beforehand but mess up the final exam, basically all my work has gone to waste, all.

Now this begs the question. What if my assignments are only worth 3%? Is it really worth the effort in getting those 3 marks? Short answer no, long answer yes. What I mean by no is that its not really something worth getting overly stressed about (such as losing sleep). Yes, you should do it to the best of your ability and aim for a high distinction, but in the end its only a mere 3%. Long answer? That 3% may be the difference between a distinction and a high distinction (final grade). Of course it will always be worth it in the end, but I say again that it is NOT something that is worth losing sleep over.

(unless your father looks like this!)

I feel courses such as these with the final examination weighing more than half of the entire grade are badly structured. If a student has shown competency through the entire semester but doesn't too as well as they should have during the final exams (many factors can cause this, e.g. stress, other exams, lack of sleep), they shouldn't be punished accordingly (I've had this happen to me!). A more even distribution of grading is much more representative of a students skills as well as ability (this destroys a students GPA if he/she performs badly in a bloated final examination grading subject). 

Now I leave you with some images because I need to get back to studying for my 60% final exam maths uni (kill me please)

-Johnson