> If not other students, then just patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.
Or, for the win-win version, how about an objective measure of correct answers/solutions. Grade inflation never bothered me in math and computer science courses, because what were they going to do when the students knew the material? Make 1 point the difference between a A and an C? I remember a midterm where a professor did exactly that (forced a grade-lowering curve on a group that had earned mostly 19 or 20 out of 20). It just didn't really work... A few kids even dropped the course, despite the fact that they basically knew all of the material (and had slipped up on only one or two answers).
Of course, they could just make the material impossibly hard so that only 2-3 students could get the A (after weeks of all-nighters and likely trading off good grades in other courses) but to me that is counterproductive to the whole reason the students are there -- to learn!
Or, for the win-win version, how about an objective measure of correct answers/solutions. Grade inflation never bothered me in math and computer science courses, because what were they going to do when the students knew the material? Make 1 point the difference between a A and an C? I remember a midterm where a professor did exactly that (forced a grade-lowering curve on a group that had earned mostly 19 or 20 out of 20). It just didn't really work... A few kids even dropped the course, despite the fact that they basically knew all of the material (and had slipped up on only one or two answers).
Of course, they could just make the material impossibly hard so that only 2-3 students could get the A (after weeks of all-nighters and likely trading off good grades in other courses) but to me that is counterproductive to the whole reason the students are there -- to learn!