" If you typically do well in a particular class, seeing a better mark on someone else's test can be like receiving a quick kick to the gut. You cannot help but feel as if your classmate is smarter than you, and this is a bad feeling. When you lose your academic confidence in a course, you also lose your energy for that subject, you do the readings with less attention, you ask fewer questions in class, and you are easily rankled in future testing situations. But here's the kicker: all of this negativity happens for no good reason. Why? Because different students' grades on any given test or paper are not directly comparable. "

― Cal Newport , How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country's Top Students