the.com/grading
The art of converting human effort into a single number nobody fully agrees with.
means The process of judging work against a standard and assigning it a score, rank, or letter that supposedly sums up its quality.
from From 'grade,' borrowed via French 'grade' from Latin 'gradus,' meaning 'step' or 'degree' — the same root that gives us 'gradual' and 'progress.' The idea was literal: ranking things as steps on a staircase, one above another. Applying it to schoolwork and quality control is a much later extension — turning the measured climb of a staircase into the single number stamped at the top of an essay.
- first grades
- William Farish invented letter grades at Cambridge in 1792
- curve myth
- curving often rewards a weak class, not brilliance
- consistency problem
- same essay can earn A or C from different graders
- real purpose
- ranks people faster than it teaches them anything