The universe, the standard model tells us, began with rapid inflation. The university as well, or at least, the modern exam-centered university.
With UK universities being upbraided by the Office for Students (OfS), the official regulator of the UK higher education sector, for handing out too many first-class degrees, I am reminded of this wonderful passage unearthed by Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College, from the report of Harvard’s 1894 Committee on Raising the Standard:
The Committee believes… that by defining anew the Grades A, B, C, D, and E, and by sending the definitions to every instructor, the Faculty may do something to keep up the standard of the higher grades. It believes that in the present practice Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily — Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity.
Noting that letter grades were first introduced at Harvard in 1886, Lewis summarises the situation thus:
It took only eight years for the first official report that an A was no longer worth what it had been and that the grading system needed reform.
Common Infirmities 
I never had to worry about being overgraded with A’s and B’s..