According to Principal Morgan Nolan, the grading scale was changed to become more uniform to prevent inconsistencies.
“We went in and were looking at teachers’ grade books,” Mr. Nolan said. “Sometimes they had like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen different categories.”
Some students think that difficult classes should have different weighting than easier ones.
“I think that it’s just absurd that AP Calculus and AP Physics can have the same grade weight system as optional courses like culinary or freshman courses like gym,” Gwendolyn Davies, senior, said.
- Take a category (practice or assessment) and find the average.
For example, take the points you earned in the practice category and divide them by the total points:
(100+30+30+70+20)/(100+50+30+75+20) = 0.91
- Multiply by weight. 0.25 for classwork, 0.60 for tests, 0.15 for final exam
Continuing with the practice category, here’s an example of the math you need to do:
0.25(0.91) = 0.23
- Do the same for all the other categories.
For example, this is the exact process as steps 1 and 2, just with the assessment category:
(20+61+14)/(20+75+15) = 0.86
0.6(0.86) = 0.52
- Multiply all categories by 100 to find percent.
Practice example: 0.23 -> 23%
Assessment example: 0.52 -> 52%
Whatever you have in the formative category doesn’t count, so ignore it.
- Add the totals together and divide by 0.85 before finals.
23% + 52% = 75%
(75 )/(0.85) = 88%
With no final exam score in yet, you are only seeing 85% of your grade, meaning that your S1 grade can be lower than both quarter grades.
- Take your final to the best of your ability. The missing 15% will be filled.
For example, if get a 90% on the final:
0.15(0.90) = 0.14
0.14 -> 14%
75% + 14% = 89%
Ultimately, your grade is decided by all of your assignments and not quarters.
