692 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1435 



dent remained the same for each year. There 

 is a gradual increase in the general average 

 from the first to the fourth year of 4.69 per 

 cent. As the same students are present 

 throughout all four years, this either shows an 

 improvement in the student's ability or, more 

 likely, severe grading during the first years or 

 las grading during the last years of the course. 

 The general average of the entire group for all 

 foui- years is 81.10 per cent., which is a low B 

 grade in our lett«r system. This gives us a 

 numerical figure for our average students in 

 the future. 



There was a great tendency toward variation 

 in the grades of an individual from one year 

 to the nest. This is well shown in Table II 

 in which the per cent, of students varying a 

 given percentage in grade, either up or down, 

 between the different years of the course is 

 shown. There is always a larger proportion of 

 the class showing an increase in grade as would 

 be espected from the increase in general aver- 

 age. To show how inconstant the grades are 

 from year to year we note that more than 36 

 per cent, of the students have a difference of 

 over 8 per cent, between fii-st and foui-th year 

 averages, and indeed, 3.62 per cent, show a 

 difference of over 18 per cent. 



In Table III the rank of the student in his 

 class is considered. The men of each class 

 were arranged according to rank, based on their 

 first year averages, and the class then split into 

 thirds, an upper, middle, and lower third. Each 

 third was now considered 100 per cent, and 

 the upper represented by left diagonal lining, 

 the middle by cross hatching, and the lower by 

 right diagonal lining. The proportion of the 

 men of the upper third during the first year 

 who fell into the middle third the second year 

 is represented by the area of left diagonal 

 lining in the middle di^nsion under year II. 

 Similar changes in other groups may be fol- 

 lowed in the same manner. It is obvious that 

 a man might go from group 1 to group 2, then 

 back to group 1 the third year, so that the left 

 diagonal lining in group 1 for the third and 

 fourth years does not represent the percentage 

 of men who remained there constantly for four 

 years, but that portion of the men who started 

 in group 1 the first year who are there in the 



year observed. Therefore the interrupted line 

 was inserted in order to indicate the percentage 

 of men in each division who remained there 

 constantly for every one of the four years. 



This table shows that the upper and lower 

 thirds of the class are the most constant in 

 their rank, for 36 per cent, remained in the 

 upper third constantly and 27 per cent, in the 

 lower, while only 10 per cent, of the middle 

 thu-d remained there for four years. Those 

 students who drop from the upper to lower 

 thii'd in the third year may be the ones pri- 

 marily interested in the fundamental sciences, 

 and not in clinical work. There are usually 

 one or two such individuals in each class. We 

 do get a surprising revelation of the incon- 

 stancy of a large proportion of the class. 



Only 24.7 per cent, of the group studied 



remained constantly in one division for four 



years, 57.3 per cent, went up or down one 



division, and 18 per cent, up or down two 



TABLE m 



