I've always loved curved classes because they allow very good professors to give real mindfuck exam questions that cause you to walk away from the test with a new perspective on the material.

Those exams were often the most edifying couple hours of the whole semester. You also got a clear sense of the difference between you and a real master of the material which is a helpful lesson in humility.

I went back to grad school recently and it seems like that mode of testing has gone out of style in the last ten years. The exams I took were geared more towards establishing a minimum bar of competence, more for my future employers' benefit than my own.