[satvikchoudhary]

> When grades weren’t as inflated, a stray C+ or B- was to be expected. As A-’s become the new default and grades stabilize at the upper end, any lower grade is seen as a failure. Because most students receive consistently high scores, the cost of experimenting with hard classes or new subjects substantially rises.

Not if the hard classes or new subjects have the same level of grade inflation. On the contrary, if students have nothing to fear about hard classes messing up with their grades, they are more likely to take them.

Most kind of grading schemes are subject to manipulation. Students always find ways to game the system. Teachers are often biased toward giving grades that are correlated with past performance of students.

Its better to have harder courses with pass/fail. The top students will have more motivation to pursue subjects they are interested in. Grades are not great motivators for students at the top. Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein (or insert your favorite physicist here) were never motivated by getting grades that look better than their classmates.

Only major issue is that how to make the admission process fair when there are no grades. Despite all their downcomings, standardized tests solve this to a large degree. When grades are not standard, students who come out of a fairer grading system suffer compared to the ones with inflation. Good luck trying to explain this to the admission committee or whoever else.