[jamn]

100% agree.

I usually found the problem sets were usually really hard. Much harder than the actual exams. Most study groups that I had seen simply consisted of one person that found the questions very easy, and a group of people that scrambled to write down the responses, even if they didn't understand them. I always found it hilarious (not really, in fact I always thought it was really unfair) that psets would be so hard, and I would do relatively poorly compared to the almost full score everyone got. On the other hand, when the exams came about, the averages were usually extremely low, with exams that should be a piece of cake for someone who can actually figure out the pset questions.

As a Teaching Assistant, I saw this situation even more clearly. As part of an assignment, students had to write an algorithm in pseudocode. We didn't publish a very well defined syntax for the language. However, interestingly, like half of the students came up with identical syntax, including instructions we had never discussed and that weren't even conventional. After finding several pset copies that were simply identical to each other, the professor decided that simply sending them an e-mail was enough of a punishment.

I find that insulting for those who actually try hard and expect their grades to be an accurate reflection of their standing in the class.