Here is as simple an explanation as possible as to why one should first and foremost if not always compare themselves with themselves and not with others.
We have a group of 30 students that were graded once :
29 scored 80% in the test and 1, you, scored 20%.
A second test is done with these results :
The same 29 score 81% and you get 80%.
If we check results only, you are still dead last in the group with a below passing 50% average.
What this obviously hides though is that you improved your result four fold in one test while the others rose by a mere .8%
If a third and final test was given and the same ameliorations were witnessed for all, the 29 other students would add a bit over 1% reaching 82 and you would get a perfect score as 320/100 is unheard of in most classrooms.
Those 29 folks would average 81% as their final result. You would get 66.66% for yours, a passing grade. While you’d still have finished last, your course would be credited.
What if a fourth test had been added? The rest of the class would have scored 83% in it for an average grade of 81.5%. Since again it is unlikely that you’d be credited for a four fold increase even from 100% to 400%, we’ll suppose another result of 100% for you. That would hike your final note to 75%. Still last but no by much.
What if a 5th test was added? 😎
Compare yourself with yourself. Getting better is personal fight.
Tay.
* A fifth test would bring you to an 80% average, the result the others got to begin with. A sixth would put you in first place overall. But even after the second one, you had improved the most and so too for the third. Had the notation been open ended that you would of course had left the slowing improving main group by that 3rd test.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 