Prop2 Final Exam Grades & Comments

December 29th, 2014

Hello everyone. I apologize for interrupting your break with this note. I have submitted grades for Property I.  I am very proud of all of you. On the whole, you nailed it. I put together really difficult fact patterns that were quite open-ended, with the intent that there would be many, many, many correct answers. I thought I had considered all the possible answers, but several of you came up with things I didn’t even think of. Well done.

Additionally, many of you incorporated various concepts we talked about in class that were not in the textbook (such as the Coase Theorem, various natural law concepts, etc.). Also, if you haven’t already seen Ghostbusters, do yourself a favor and watch it. Question 1 will be a lot more interesting. As for Titanic, Mythbusters determined that the only way Rose and Jack could have both survived, was by wrapping the life jacket around the piece of wood. So much for never letting go.

You can download the exam here.

You can download the A+ paper here. If this is your paper, please drop me a line.

The Grades

First year classes are subject to the school’s mandatory grading curve (see p. 84 of the handbook):

grades assigned in classes of 40 or more students shall conform to a mandatory grading distribution. That distribution provides for a required 9-16 percent for A+/A, a required 16-30 percent for A+/A/A-; a required 16-30 percent for C+/C/C-/D+/D/F; and a required 9-16 percent for C/C-/D+/D/F. The class average shall be 2.85-3.15.

I think you will find that I maximized the grades here. I approached the upper limits of the grades allowed above an A-, and approached the lower limits of grades below C+. In addition, the class average was very close to the upper limit. In other words, there were many more As than Cs, and the class averages were quite high.

Here is the full breakdown.

  • Average: 3.141
  • A and above – 15.3%
  • A- and above – 27.1%
  • C+ and below: 18.6%
  • C and below: 11.9%

distribution

Thank you all for a great semester.