Playing Game Theory for an Exam: Large Classes and Small Classes

Playing Game Theory for an Exam: Large Classes and Small Classes

Zehra, Adaora, and Anna

            For some classes at Mount Holyoke, grades are given on a curve, often so the averages is a B or B+, to reflect the average grade of all of Mount Holyoke. In Macroeconomic Theory, a grade doesn’t mean anything by itself, it only means something compared to the other students.  Since the average grade is a B+ every year, it means that every year, the number of questions needed to make a B+ changes. Some years, if almost every student gets every question right on every exam, getting one more question wrong than the class average may put a student at a B-, even though if another year, if a class wasn’t as bright, the same number of questions right on the exam may be an A. This also gives the class has control, in theory, of how what a B+ should be. If everyone in the class makes sure to do poorly on an exam, the B+ would not be only a few questions answered correctly. However, this means if one person did ignore the class’s plan and answered a few more questions correctly than the original plan, they would get an A without doing particularly well, presenting a form of Prisoner’s Dilemma, with the Nash Equilibrium of always doing well, or at least trying to do well, in an exam or paper.

            Even in small classes, a curve on an exam sometimes arises. Though the teacher may not mean to, but if everyone in a six or seven person class didn’t do well on an exam or paper, the professor may deem the topic or exam questions too hard, trusting her students to have tried their best, and add bonus points if it is an exam, or reading papers with a lower standard. Therefore, students also have the Nash Equilibrium of doing their best, no matter what the other students may have decided.