Relative grading, and how it changes your grade

Under absolute grading the boundaries are printed in the ordinance before anyone sits the paper. Ninety and above is a 10, the eighties are a 9, and so on down. Your grade is a function of your marks and nothing else. If the whole batch scores 90, the whole batch gets a 10.

That is the system the ten-point table describes, and it is what most students assume is running.

The examination section takes the batch’s results for that subject, computes the mean and the standard deviation, and places the band boundaries relative to them. The exact placement varies by institution, but the shape is always the same: the top band is defined by distance above the mean rather than by an absolute mark.

Two things follow immediately, and both are counter-intuitive.

• A hard paper does not hurt you. If everyone scored badly, the mean drops and the boundaries drop with it. A 48 in a paper where the mean was 40 can be a high grade.
• A strong batch does hurt you. The same 72 that earned an A last year can be a B+ this year if the cohort improved, because the mean it is measured against moved up.

Same marks, two different batches, illustrative boundaries:

The boundaries above are an illustration of the mechanism, not any institution’s published scheme. Every university sets its own placement, some cap the proportion awarded the top grade, and some apply relative grading only where the batch is above a minimum size. Your ordinance is what governs.

Relative grading is common in larger institutions and in subjects with big enrolments, because it needs a cohort large enough for a mean to be meaningful. It is rarer in electives with fifteen students, in laboratory courses, and in project work, where absolute criteria are usually kept.

Many universities therefore run both, subject by subject, which is why one grade on your card can look unreasonably generous and another unreasonably harsh in the same semester.

The arithmetic downstream is untouched. Once a grade point is awarded, the SGPA and CGPA are computed the same way — multiply by credits, add, divide by total credits. Relative grading changes which point you are awarded, not what happens to it afterwards. The SGPA calculator works from whatever points your grade card prints.

It also does not change the conversion to a percentage. That formula is applied to the finished CGPA and knows nothing about how the grades underneath were arrived at.

• Do not compare your grade with a senior’s. Their batch had a different mean. Marks are comparable across years; grades under relative grading are not.
• Do not read a low grade in a hard paper as a low mark. Under relative grading it usually means the opposite of what it looks like.
• Check which system applies to each subject before concluding an award is wrong. Your ordinance states it, and the examination section will confirm.