DEAD WEIGHT

There are numerous features of the April Hour Examinations, including the Institution itself, which have come under the fire of undergraduate criticism. A particular grievance, and apparently a spreading one, is the system of cumulative grades. Established on the sound principle of marking the student on his entire year's work instead of on a single examination, the cumulative grades in practice prove to nulify the purpose of the April Hours.

In use in such courses as Biology A, Chemistry A, and French 2 the cumulative theory tends to fix the Midyear grade as the April mark which goes into the office. For instance, a man receiving a C at Midyear's must get an A or an E in the April examination in order to change his standing in the Dean's Office. This situation destroys, in a large measure, the value of the April records as an index of a student's progress, and relegates the examinations to a mere breaking up of the term's work and a routine check on reading.

The abuses of cumulative grading are two-fold. A man working to have his probation relieved at April with four B's must actually bring his grade not up to B, but to A in order that he may have a B in the office. In other words the Midyear grade turns out to be a halter about the neck of the man who would reasonably better his standing. Conversely, the system enables a man in good standing at Midyears to slide his spring work down to D without any evident loss.

Cumulative marking to accomplish its desired aims should be an average made at the end of the year. Only this way can the full credit be given for each day's work. But in such courses as make the April grade dependent on Midyear standing the April examinations are functionless red tape.