A few students were given honors, some were asked not to return, and the rest just kept learning. Most current grading schemes are statistically bogus, education's dirty little secret. The GPA, as a consequence, can be a very misleading measure of how well students have actually performed relative to one another. Grading in general is a crude power-play to keep the unruly masses in line. It will go on your Permanent Record.
Most college professors have no formal training in teaching.
They have no idea how to construct a valid multiple-choice test. Those tests don't measure learning, anyway. They measure short-term memory retention. Seventy-two hours later, most students won't test nearly as well unless they cram again. Well, use your own experience to finish that sentence.