Good Grades DBQ

Whether or not academic achievement truly defines one’s intelligence is an age old conversation. There are people that believe, with good reason, that a person getting A’s is smarter than a student who receives C’. Meanwhile there are others who believe that getting good grades is a mere sign of obedience. Being that the education system focuses so much of it's attention on the grades a person receives, it is important to fully understand what they are representing. Are A students more intelligent that C students? The answer seems simple, but some people believe that it's much more complicated than it seems.

The side of the argument on which grades do not define intelligence often uses the argument that scholastic achievement can reflect

For example, an A student could answer every single question correctly but never be able to apply the information learned to other aspects of their life. Meanwhile a C student could only answer 70 percent correctly but still manage to use much of that information in real world situations. How can some one say the A student is more intelligent than the C student when the C student is the only one able to apply the information to life outside of the classroom. A visual from Business.edu (Source D) shows a graph from studies done to prove that Grades and intelligence might be lesser connected than many people think. In fact, there is a stronger correlation between self discipline and good grades than IQ and good grades. Two students with the same IQ are separated in school by a whole letter grade due to the factor of self discipline. This suggests that grades could very possibly fail to measure intelligence but rather one’s

An article written by Buisness.edu (Source E) outlines many of the differences between A students and C students. It shows studies that prove skills such as time management and communication, which are primarily found in A students, correlate with higher intelligence. An article by Education.com (Source F) argues that students with higher IQ scores tend to better than students with lower IQ scores. They have done correlative studies between standardized testing, grades, and IQ and have found a very strong correlation between the three. One of the most predominant arguments comes from the definition of the word intelligence itself (Source G) - the ability to learn and understand new concepts and apply them to real life situations. Students who earn good grades prove on a daily basis that they have the ability to learn and understand the new concepts that they are taught. Visa versa, how can students prove they fit this definition of intelligent if they are unable to understand the new concepts they are being taught. There is a high probability that the people trying to argue this side are either students who achieve good grades and feel they are more intelligent than their peers who receive worse grades, or they are people who are in denial that something is wrong with the school