bell-curve

What's cynical is to devise a series of assessments that don't assess anything meaningful; assessments that lead to a perfectly predictable bell-curve distribution of performance, and then build an entire system of accountability, even of pedagogy, based on those fatally flawed assessments.

Alan Gottlieb: Of Civil Wars and Forgotten Words Alan Gottlieb 2010

What's cynical is to devise a series of assessments that don't assess anything meaningful; assessments that lead to a perfectly predictable bell-curve distribution of performance, and then build an entire system of accountability, even of pedagogy, based on those fatally flawed assessments.

Alan Gottlieb: Of Civil Wars and Forgotten Words Alan Gottlieb 2010

Steve Sailer analyzed whether America was heading for Idiocracy in terms of whether women to the right or left of the bell-curve average had more kids here.

Flynn on the Flynn Effect, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

Our strategies for managing risk, for instance -- including Modern Portfolio Theory and the Black-Scholes formula for pricing options -- are likely to fail at the worst possible time, Mr. Taleb argues, because they are generally (and mistakenly) based on bell-curve assumptions.

Non-normal Distributions, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

Another example, it seems (from some reports, at least) there is also a bell-curve of talent statistically different between men and women: we men outnumber women at both extremes.

MIND MELD: Is There Gender Imbalance in Genre Fiction Publishing? 2008

We perceive yellows and oranges as "light" colors, but there's nothing inherently light about those wavelengths in terms of their physical properties; the aggregate bell-curve of our eyes' sensitivity to hues is just at its peak at that range of the spectrum.

Peak Saturation Value James Gurney 2010

To take an example: at the individual tag level, the flaws of misspellings and inaccuracies are annoying and troublesome, but at a meta level these inaccuracies are ironed out; flattened by sheer mass: a kind of bell-curve peak of correctness.

Archive 2008-04-01 Mia 2008

To take an example: at the individual tag level, the flaws of misspellings and inaccuracies are annoying and troublesome, but at a meta level these inaccuracies are ironed out; flattened by sheer mass: a kind of bell-curve peak of correctness.

It's a wonderful, wonderful web Mia 2008

That this takes place at all is surprising considering the LSE does not operate a bell-curve grading system.

Alexander Dresner: Intellectual Benefits, Emotional Costs: The Value of Attending the World's Best Universities 2009

Reality: The questions in the IQ test are designed to produce a bell-curve distribution of scores.

Dan Agin: Black and White in America IV: IQ Myths and Realities 2009