So this feels like humble-bragging to bring up, but I think it's a worthwhile question. For background, I'm enrolled in a course that is notoriously difficult at my college, and somehow I've ended up at the top of my class (in fairness, it's a subject I've been interested in for a long time so I came in with some prior knowledge). I've really enjoyed the course, I get along well with the professor, and I have no reason to complain, but...
For the second-to-final exam, I was dinged for an incomplete answer to an essay question. I had all the correct ideas and explanation, but in my discussion I failed to get to the level of specificity that the question asked for (think, "mammals and reptiles" vs "horses and crocodiles"). Everything else about my answer was accurate, I literally just needed to name a couple more specific examples.
I was awarded 0/10 points for that question (with the reason given being my lack of specificity described above).
Now to be clear, I still scored safely over 90% on that exam, and my final grade is not in any danger. So I have no reason to complain to the professor, and I have no plans to. But it does seem like an overly harsh grade for an answer that was otherwise on point, grammatically correct, and that explained the important concepts. More pertinently, this is definitely not how my answers were graded earlier on in the course - I have gotten partial credit on answers that missed the mark by at least this much.
I can't help but wonder if I'm being "taken down a peg" with this grade. And I'm not even saying that wouldn't be fair, obviously I still want to improve and everything so maybe it takes a harsher grade to keep me from being complacent. But I'm curious if this is something that professors consciously do, if a student is performing particularly well?
Do you (intentionally or otherwise) hold the top-performers to a higher standard?