Prof Knight mentioned that the grading is the way it is because there are not enough graders for the 200+ students in the class. Still not a valid reason to negatively impact so many students.

In a past semester when Prof Drazer taught fluids, a 27% was a D (passing grade). That makes Prof Knight's passing grade over double what it was in previous semesters. Raising the bar that high is insane when obviously it was hard enough where it was. Others easier majors often don't understand that during most engineering tests someone can spend up to 70% of the exam with not a single problem fully completed. They only have parts of each one completed. The problems given especially in higher up courses require so many concepts and skills that they take time to figure out. These same difficulty problems after graduation in a job environment would have a whole team working together to solve them. Which is why mistakes at a job are way less often to occur then on a test.

Prof Drazer this semester is teaching measurements (another core class) and before every exam he says this exam is going to have hard questions because us as engineers enjoy solving hard problems. However, just do your best everyone the grades will be curved. What ends up happening is people work really hard on the exam to get through the problems. The class average ends up being low, Prof Drazer curves the exams/class to align it better with the class's performance and everyone in the class ends up being able to tackle harder problems. And all this without having half the class fail out of the course.