During my bachelor I remember getting a distinction for an assignment that I put a shit ton of effort into and being elated. And then finding out that my tutor had taken it to the board trying to make the case for a high distinction, and narrowly failing, but it then being archived as an example of the output that the class wanted anyway.

That bowled me over when I was young and still sort of working out effort/reward sort of stuff. I had put a lot of work into a lot of subjects where I wasnt very naturally talented and got a lot of mediocre results, but seeing that if I put the effort in continually I could make stuff thats worthy of recognition was amazing.

Meanwhile, my (now) wife was completing a diploma subject at the same institution and they were handing out pass/fail only. You could see a lot of people really confused about that. The quality of work that fit into "pass" ran a very large gamut.