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Given how concerned most students are about grades, it's amazing how little they know about how grading is done. Actually, it's not so amazing. Universities go to great lengths to hide—or at least not disclose—facts about grading that anyone who's taught at a university for more than a year knows. Want a peek? Read on.

1. It's 10 minutes—and then on to the next. You might think that your grader will spend half an hour to an hour grading each student's piece of work. Not so. Unfortunately, given that an instructor might have a stack of 30, 40, or even 70 papers or tests to grade, he or she has only about 10 minutes to devote to each piece of graded work. This is why you should make your claims clearly and forcefully, avoid any irrelevant or unnecessary material, and take the trouble to really explain your points.

2. The grading is often outsourced. In large classes at large colleges, the professor giving the lecture is rarely the one who does the grading. Instead, there is usually a cadre of low-paid grad students who do the grading. You might know the grad student as the TA running your discussion section. But your grader might also be an unseen and unnamed person who has been hired only to grade the written work, with no other duties in the course. Some professors actively manage the grad student or grader, going over sample papers and setting a grading scale. But other professors are happy to delegate the whole job to the underling and never set eyes on student work.

3. It's not as subjective as you think. While it's easy to see how grades are assigned on "objective" tests (like multiple-choice or short-answer tests), it's tempting to think that the grading of essays or papers is just a matter of opinion. But if you were to actually read a set of 50 essays on the same topic, you—and anyone who knew the material—could see right away that there is a wide range of levels of quality in the answers. For professors who have been teaching the material, it's extremely easy to distinguish the essays from students who show an excellent understanding of the issue from those who sort of get the point and those who have no idea what they're talking about—and to assign the grades accordingly. Sure, the professor down the hall might see the same set a bit differently, but it's not likely that this other prof is going to find the D essay any more illuminating than the one who gave a D in the first place.

4. A's are often in short supply. At most colleges, despite what you might have heard about grade inflation, professors give about 10 percent to 25 percent A's in introductory classes and perhaps 30 percent to 50 percent in more advanced courses.

5. Grading usually is not a zero-sum game. In classes where the grading is curved, your grade is in fact determined by your position relative to other students in the class. But curves are not used in all that many classes. Most liberal arts students don't see them that often. So relax—the reason you didn't get an A is not because your friend stole the last available A. It's just that the level of your work didn't merit one.

6. First impressions count. Since your grader is working fast and trying to make a quick decision about what grade to give, nailing the main point in the very first paragraph creates a feeling of satisfaction in the grader. This sets the essay on the path to an A. Keeping the grader in suspense about when—and if—you're ever going to answer the question, or, worse, larding your essay with bull, very quickly inclines the grader to a C.

7. Last impressions count. Your conclusion is the last thing your grader reads before slapping the grade on at the bottom, so whatever you do, don't end with excuses or explanations of why you did such a bad job. This only confirms the grader's judgment that the essay wasn't really all that hot. Just summing up what you've said is OK, but a far better idea is to bring out some new point of even deeper significance or draw an unexpected connection—that's ending with a bang. And you'll likely get a bang-up grade.