what percentage of grades are homework

Grade Calculator

Use this calculator to find out the grade of a course based on weighted averages. This calculator accepts both numerical as well as letter grades. It also can calculate the grade needed for the remaining assignments in order to get a desired grade for an ongoing course.

Final Grade Calculator

Use this calculator to find out the grade needed on the final exam in order to get a desired grade in a course. It accepts letter grades, percentage grades, and other numerical inputs.

Related GPA Calculator

The calculators above use the following letter grades and their typical corresponding numerical equivalents based on grade points.

Brief history of different grading systems

In 1785, students at Yale were ranked based on "optimi" being the highest rank, followed by second optimi, inferiore (lower), and pejores (worse). At William and Mary, students were ranked as either No. 1, or No. 2, where No. 1 represented students that were first in their class, while No. 2 represented those who were "orderly, correct and attentive." Meanwhile at Harvard, students were graded based on a numerical system from 1-200 (except for math and philosophy where 1-100 was used). Later, shortly after 1883, Harvard used a system of "Classes" where students were either Class I, II, III, IV, or V, with V representing a failing grade. All of these examples show the subjective, arbitrary, and inconsistent nature with which different institutions graded their students, demonstrating the need for a more standardized, albeit equally arbitrary grading system.

In 1887, Mount Holyoke College became the first college to use letter grades similar to those commonly used today. The college used a grading scale with the letters A, B, C, D, and E, where E represented a failing grade. This grading system however, was far stricter than those commonly used today, with a failing grade being defined as anything below 75%. The college later re-defined their grading system, adding the letter F for a failing grade (still below 75%). This system of using a letter grading scale became increasingly popular within colleges and high schools, eventually leading to the letter grading systems typically used today. However, there is still significant variation regarding what may constitute an A, or whether a system uses plusses or minuses (i.e. A+ or B-), among other differences.

An alternative to the letter grading system

Letter grades provide an easy means to generalize a student's performance. They can be more effective than qualitative evaluations in situations where "right" or "wrong" answers can be easily quantified, such as an algebra exam, but alone may not provide a student with enough feedback in regards to an assessment like a written paper (which is much more subjective).

Although a written analysis of each individual student's work may be a more effective form of feedback, there exists the argument that students and parents are unlikely to read the feedback, and that teachers do not have the time to write such an analysis. There is precedence for this type of evaluation system however, in Saint Ann's School in New York City, an arts-oriented private school that does not have a letter grading system. Instead, teachers write anecdotal reports for each student. This method of evaluation focuses on promoting learning and improvement, rather than the pursuit of a certain letter grade in a course. For better or for worse however, these types of programs constitute a minority in the United States, and though the experience may be better for the student, most institutions still use a fairly standard letter grading system that students will have to adjust to. The time investment that this type of evaluation method requires of teachers/professors is likely not viable on university campuses with hundreds of students per course. As such, although there are other high schools such as Sanborn High School that approach grading in a more qualitative way, it remains to be seen whether such grading methods can be scalable. Until then, more generalized forms of grading like the letter grading system are unlikely to be entirely replaced. However, many educators already try to create an environment that limits the role that grades play in motivating students. One could argue that a combination of these two systems would likely be the most realistic, and effective way to provide a more standardized evaluation of students, while promoting learning.

11 Surprising Homework Statistics, Facts & Data

The age-old question of whether homework is good or bad for students is unanswerable because there are so many “ it depends ” factors.

For example, it depends on the age of the child, the type of homework being assigned, and even the child’s needs.

There are also many conflicting reports on whether homework is good or bad. This is a topic that largely relies on data interpretation for the researcher to come to their conclusions.

To cut through some of the fog, below I’ve outlined some great homework statistics that can help us understand the effects of homework on children.

Homework Statistics List

1. 45% of parents think homework is too easy for their children.

A study by the Center for American Progress found that parents are almost twice as likely to believe their children’s homework is too easy than to disagree with that statement.

Here are the figures for math homework:

• 46% of parents think their child’s math homework is too easy.
• 25% of parents think their child’s math homework is not too easy.
• 29% of parents offered no opinion.

Here are the figures for language arts homework:

• 44% of parents think their child’s language arts homework is too easy.
• 28% of parents think their child’s language arts homework is not too easy.
• 28% of parents offered no opinion.

These findings are based on online surveys of 372 parents of school-aged children conducted in 2018.

2. 93% of Fourth Grade Children Worldwide are Assigned Homework

The prestigious worldwide math assessment Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) took a survey of worldwide homework trends in 2007. Their study concluded that 93% of fourth-grade children are regularly assigned homework, while just 7% never or rarely have homework assigned.

3. 17% of Teens Regularly Miss Homework due to Lack of High-Speed Internet Access

A 2018 Pew Research poll of 743 US teens found that 17%, or almost 2 in every 5 students, regularly struggled to complete homework because they didn’t have reliable access to the internet.

This figure rose to 25% of Black American teens and 24% of teens whose families have an income of less than $30,000 per year.

4. Parents Spend 6.7 Hours Per Week on their Children’s Homework

A 2018 study of 27,500 parents around the world found that the average amount of time parents spend on homework with their child is 6.7 hours per week. Furthermore, 25% of parents spend more than 7 hours per week on their child’s homework.

American parents spend slightly below average at 6.2 hours per week, while Indian parents spend 12 hours per week and Japanese parents spend 2.6 hours per week.

5. Students in High-Performing High Schools Spend on Average 3.1 Hours per night Doing Homework

A study by Galloway, Conner & Pope (2013) conducted a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California. 

Across these high-performing schools, students self-reported that they did 3.1 hours per night of homework.

Graduates from those schools also ended up going on to college 93% of the time.

6. One to Two Hours is the Optimal Duration for Homework

A 2012 peer-reviewed study in the High School Journal found that students who conducted between one and two hours achieved higher results in tests than any other group.

However, the authors were quick to highlight that this “t is an oversimplification of a much more complex problem.” I’m inclined to agree. The greater variable is likely the quality of the homework than time spent on it.

Nevertheless, one result was unequivocal: that some homework is better than none at all : “students who complete any amount of homework earn higher test scores than their peers who do not complete homework.”

7. 74% of Teens cite Homework as a Source of Stress

A study by the Better Sleep Council found that homework is a source of stress for 74% of students. Only school grades, at 75%, rated higher in the study.

That figure rises for girls, with 80% of girls citing homework as a source of stress.

Similarly, the study by Galloway, Conner & Pope (2013) found that 56% of students cite homework as a “primary stressor” in their lives.

8. US Teens Spend more than 15 Hours per Week on Homework

The same study by the Better Sleep Council also found that US teens spend over 2 hours per school night on homework, and overall this added up to over 15 hours per week.

Surprisingly, 4% of US teens say they do more than 6 hours of homework per night. That’s almost as much homework as there are hours in the school day.

The only activity that teens self-reported as doing more than homework was engaging in electronics, which included using phones, playing video games, and watching TV.

9. The 10-Minute Rule

The National Education Association (USA) endorses the concept of doing 10 minutes of homework per night per grade.

For example, if you are in 3rd grade, you should do 30 minutes of homework per night. If you are in 4th grade, you should do 40 minutes of homework per night.

However, this ‘rule’ appears not to be based in sound research. Nevertheless, it is true that homework benefits (no matter the quality of the homework) will likely wane after 2 hours (120 minutes) per night, which would be the NEA guidelines’ peak in grade 12.

10. 21.9% of Parents are Too Busy for their Children’s Homework

An online poll of nearly 300 parents found that 21.9% are too busy to review their children’s homework. On top of this, 31.6% of parents do not look at their children’s homework because their children do not want their help. For these parents, their children’s unwillingness to accept their support is a key source of frustration.

11. 46.5% of Parents find Homework too Hard

The same online poll of parents of children from grades 1 to 12 also found that many parents struggle to help their children with homework because parents find it confusing themselves. Unfortunately, the study did not ask the age of the students so more data is required here to get a full picture of the issue.

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Interpreting the Data

Unfortunately, homework is one of those topics that can be interpreted by different people pursuing differing agendas. All studies of homework have a wide range of variables, such as:

• What age were the children in the study?
• What was the homework they were assigned?
• What tools were available to them?
• What were the cultural attitudes to homework and how did they impact the study?
• Is the study replicable?

The more questions we ask about the data, the more we realize that it’s hard to come to firm conclusions about the pros and cons of homework .

Furthermore, questions about the opportunity cost of homework remain. Even if homework is good for children’s test scores, is it worthwhile if the children consequently do less exercise or experience more stress?

Thus, this ends up becoming a largely qualitative exercise. If parents and teachers zoom in on an individual child’s needs, they’ll be able to more effectively understand how much homework a child needs as well as the type of homework they should be assigned.

Related: Funny Homework Excuses

The debate over whether homework should be banned will not be resolved with these homework statistics. But, these facts and figures can help you to pursue a position in a school debate on the topic – and with that, I hope your debate goes well and you develop some great debating skills!

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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How to Calculate Grades Based on Percentages (With Calculator!)

Determine grading policy, grade calculator, calculate category averages, converted weighted grade percentages, calculate averages, determine total grade, how to handle a weighted grading system, how to handle point systems to determine your total score, how to determine how much you need to score on your final exam to maintain your grade.

Many high school teachers and college professors weigh homework, quizzes and test grades differently depending on the difficulty and significance of the assignment. Big tests (like a midterm exam or final exam) and quizzes generally account for most of the total grade, because they encompass more of the subject material.

The letter grades you receive in the gradebook after all of your individual assignments, tests, and quizzes have been graded make up your grade point average (gpa). Typically, students want to keep their gpa as high as possible. Whether you are on the verge of failing a class, or you have pretty good grades and just want to know how your grades add up, you can calculate your grades with a few simple formulas.

1. establish your professor's grading policy for how each category is weighted.

• The professor may announce this early on in the class for clarity. If they do not, you can also check with the ​ course syllabus ​ or refer to the school policy.
• Asking directly may be best because of professor preferences in their weighted grading system that may not be updated in online materials.

For example

The professor may weigh 35 percent of the final grade to quizzes, 20 percent to homework and 45 percent to tests.

Below we provide a grade calculator as an alternative to performing the grade calculations explained in the article.

2. Calculate the average of each category by adding up all of your scores for each category and divide by the number of assignments in that category.

If you have five tests with the scores of 90, 85, 100, 75 and 91, the accumulated point total for all your test would be 441. Divide the total by five for your test average of 88.2 percent.

3. Convert the weighted grade percentages to decimal value by dividing the percentage by 100.

If tests are weighted 45 percent of the total grade, the decimal would be 0.45 (45 / 100 = 0.45).

Repeat this step for each weighted section (homework, quizzes, tests, etc.).

4. Multiply the average for each category by the weight, in decimal, of each category to calculate the total points out of 100.

If your test average is 88.2 percent and is weighted 45 percent, the points for your overall grade out of 100 would be 39.69 (which is 88.2 x 0.45). Repeat this step for your other subject categories.

While most professors will maintain the final grade given, speaking with the professor can result in updating the grade through additional projects or corrections.

Additionally, if a student is not happy with the course grade, some colleges have policies allowing classes to be repeated and then averaged, which can also raise a course grade as well as your overall gpa.

5. Add the results for each category from Step 4 to find out your total grade out of 100 points.

If you calculated a 39.69 for test, 34 for quizzes and 18.5 for homework, your total grade would be 92.19 percent.

At many colleges using a four-point scale, an A requiring a total grade of 90 with a B letter grade falling in the 80 percent range.

A C grade ranges between 70 and 80 percent with a D ranging from 60 to 70 percent. Anything below a 60 percent would be considered a failing grade, or F.

These grade ranges do vary by school and professor, and they are general estimates with some colleges starting an A at 92 percent, a B at 83 percent and so on.

A weighted score is the key to understanding where your professor wants you to focus. Look especially for attendance or term papers. If your syllabus mentions extra credit, do the extra credit work because it gives you a buffer going into your final exam.

The key is to start from the max total score and follow the breakdown from tests and quizzes to homework and attendance.

As an example, a language course has a quiz every class that is worth 20 points. If you have 30 quizzes or two per week, the total quiz points is 600. If the total number of points is 1,000 and 600 or 60% (600 / 1000) comes from quizzes, you should spend extra time ensuring you maximize your quiz score.

On the other hand, point values from quizzes are often weighted lower than your midterm and final grades – often, because your instructor wants to grade you on your complete understanding of the material rather than recalling by rote something from the textbook.

Your overall grade will often be determined by your final exam. Because your class is almost complete, you should take your syllabus and your scores and be able to calculate your current class grade.

For example, your current grade may be a B+ because out of 800 possible points, you have 704 points or 88% (704 / 800). If your final exam is worth 200 points, then your total points is 1,000 and you will need 186 on your final exam for an A- (900 / 1000 is 90%) and a perfect score on your final exam worth 200 points, will still keep you at an A- for your overall grade. Why? Because your final exam was only 20% of your total grade.

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• Mercer University: Weighted Average Grade Calculator
• Canvas: How Do I Weight the Final Course Grade Based On Assignment Groups
• Georgia Tech: How Categories and Weighting Affect Grade Calculation In Percentage Gradebooks
• Baruch College Undergraduate Bulletin: Letter Grades and Grade Point Equivalents

Helen Jody Lin has been writing since 2009. She has written screenplays, produced short films and worked in entertainment marketing. Her work has been published in campaigns for Fanscape, a digital media marketing agency. Lin has a thorough knowledge of broad topics such as fitness and extreme sports. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in radio-television-film.

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Grade Calculator

Our Grade Calculator can help you determine what you need to get on your final exam to achieve the final grade you would like for a given course.

Do you know your Current Grade?

Fill in your assignment grades on the right to automatically calculate your Current Grade

Grade Needed on Final Exam

Please make sure all text fields are filled out.

Minimum Attainable Course Grade: 0%

Maximum Attainable Course Grade: 100%

Enter your assignment scores here to automatically calculate your current grade (e.g. midterms, homework, tests, labs, etc.)

Important Notes

You can use our grade calculator to calculate the final exam grade you will need to achieve the overall course grade you desire. Our calculator requires you to enter the current percentage grade you have currently obtained for that course together with the weight of the final exam as a percentage value. However, if you do not know what your current grade is, for the question "Do you know your Current Grade?" select the answer "no." Enter the grades you have received for all of your assignments, homework, test, labs, and anything else that contributes to your final grade, as well as the weight of each grade. Our grade calculator will automatically calculate not only your current grade but the grade you need to achieve on your final exam to achieve the overall course grade you desire. In addition, both the minimum and maximum course overall grades will be provided.

Once you have entered the information required, the system will generate both a table and a chart that show the different final exam grades you may obtain as well as the overall course grades that go with them.

Inputting Data in our Grade Calculator

When entering your current grade and the weight of your final exam, our calculator will assume that your current grade has been based on the weight of the course prior to your final exam and calculates it as the input weight subtracted from 100%. If your current grade hasn't taken your coursework into account, the generated results will not be accurate.

Similar to the above, if you don't know what your current grade is and you enter both the coursework grades and the associated weights into the calculator, the calculator will automatically calculate your current grade and the weight of the final exam. In this situation, the weight of your final exam is calculated by taking the sum of the weight of your course work subtracted from 100%. With that in mind, if you enter too many or not enough assignments, the weight of the final exam that is calculated will most likely not match the actual weight of the final exam in your chosen course.

You may also be interested in our Flesch Kincaid Calculator

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Grade Calculator

Use this weighted grade calculator to easily calculate the weighted average grade for a class or course. Enter letter grades (A, B-, C+, etc.) or percentage scores (75, 88, 92, etc.) achieved on all relevant exams, homework assignments, projects, verbal exams, etc. as well as their weights as percentages. Optionally, enter a final grade goal to estimate how much you need to score on your final exam in order to meet your goal.

Related calculators

• How to calculate your grade
• What grade do I need on my final?
• How to convert a grade to percentage?

    How to calculate your grade

With the help of this grade calculator you can calculate your current weighted grade or unweighted grade in terms of percentage, letter grade, or GPA. The tool will also output the weight of all remaining exams, and assignments and has the option of calculating the minimum score you need to obtain on a final exam in order to achieve a target overall grade for a class or course.

To use the calculator, enter the number of grades you currently have, then each grade as a percent or letter grade , and finally the weight each grade adds towards the overall. If no weights are entered, the weights are assumed equal and the calculator will output the unweighted average grade. Otherwise a weighted average grade will be produced in terms of percentage, GPA, and a letter grade.

    What grade do I need on my final?

If you haven't yet got a score on the final exam for a given class, you can use this tool as a final grade calculator. In order to achieve a given grade goal for the entire class, course, or semester, a given minimum grade is required on the final exam, depending on both the weighted average grade to that date, and the weight of the final on the overall grade. This minimum required score can be calculated using the following formula:

Required final score = (Grade Goal - Current Grade x (100% - Weight of Final(%))) / Weight of Final(%)

The current grade is calculated based on the weighted average of all marks to date. The weight of the final test is calculated as 100% minus the combined weight of all grades to date. Therefore, if the combined weight of the scores you enter is 65% then the final exam will have a weight of 100% - 65% = 35%.

    How to convert a grade to percentage?

Our grade calculator uses the following table to convert letter grades to percentages. Note that since this is not a universally applicable table, ideally one would want to know the exact percentage scores and use these as input for the calculator, otherwise the results may be slightly off.

Again, it is our recommendation that you check with your local school or college and enter percentage grades instead of letter grades for the most accurate calculation. Note that while U.S. colleges and schools are likely to use the above grading, educational institutions in other countries may use a vastly different GPA scale.

Cite this calculator & page

If you'd like to cite this online calculator resource and information as provided on the page, you can use the following citation: Georgiev G.Z., "Grade Calculator" , [online] Available at: https://www.gigacalculator.com/calculators/grade-calculator.php URL [Accessed Date: 08 Apr, 2024].

     Other calculators

Grade Calculator

• Grade calculator
• Final grade calculator
• GPA calculator

Understanding how to calculate your current grade in a course is advantageous for planning what you need to achieve your goal’s overall course grade. The following Grade Calculator serves as an easy-to-use helpful tool to calculate your current grade of the course before the final examination.  

What is a Grade Calculator?  

A Grade Calculator is a free online tool designed to help students and educators determine academic grades based on entered scores and weights. It simplifies the process of calculating current grades, helping users navigate their academic journeys.   

The Grade Calculator helps students estimate the impact of each assignment on their course’s weighted average grade. That means the overall grade of a course depends on 2 main factors: the grade of each assignment (g) and the corresponding weight of each assignment (w).  

A Grade calculator helps you find your current average score in a course based on completed assignments up to the current point in the semester. The Final grade calculator then calculates the score you need to achieve in your remaining assignment (the final exam) to reach your desired grade of the course

How to Use a Grade Calculator?  

Using a Grade Calculator is a straightforward process that involves entering relevant information about your academic performance. To utilize this calculator, input your current percentage for each assignment, test, or exam, along with its respective weight towards your final grade. For each additional assignment, test, or exam, click on "Add Assignment." Your results will automatically update as you input each component , allowing you to track your progress throughout the course.  

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to use a Grade Calculator:  

Step 1: Input the Assignments.  

Users manually enter the name of each assignment, for example: Assignment 1, 2, 3, Homework, Final Exam, etc.  

Step 2: Input the grade.  

Enter their scores for each assignment, test, project, or other exam throughout the course. Each entry typically includes the earned percentage (10%, 30%, 50%, etc.), letter (A+, B-, D, etc.), or points (20, 50, 175, etc.).  

Step 3: Input the weight.  

Enter the weight of that assignment into the overall course grade. The weight indicates that different assignments may have varying impacts on the final grade. A final exam might have a higher weight than a small task.  

Step 4: Calculate the grade automatically.  

The tool then automatically calculates the cumulative grade based on the entered grades and weights. Users can see their current grade as well as how each assignment contributes to the overall grade.  

Step 5: Adjust as needed.  

Users can adjust grades or weights to see how changes impact the overall course performance. This dynamic feature allows for real-time exploration of different scenarios, helping users make informed decisions about their academic strategy and goal achievement.  

Weighted Grade Calculation: Formula and Example  

The calculation of a weighted grade involves summing the products of the weights (w) and the corresponding grades (g).  

Weighted Grade = (w₁ × g₁ + w₂ × g₂ + w₃ × g₃ + …) / (g₁ + g₂ + g₃ +...)  

Example 1: Grade type: Percentage  

Determine the weighted grade of a course, in which:  

• Assignment with a grade (percentage) of 80 and a weight of 30.  
• Homework with a grade (percentage) of 90 and a weight of 20.  
• Final exam with a grade (percentage) of 72 and a weight of 50.  

The weighted average grade is determined by the formula:  

Weighted Grade = (w₁ × g₁ + w₂ × g₂ + w₃ × g₃ + …) / (w₁ + w₂ + w₃+...)  

Substituting the values:  

Weighted Grade = (30 × 80 + 20 × 90 + 50 × 72) / (30 + 20 + 50) = 78  

Example 2: Grade type: Letter  

• Assignment 1 with a grade (letter) of A+ and a weight of 20.  
• Assignment 2 with a grade (letter) of B and a weight of 20.  
• Final exam with a grade (letter) of C- and a weight of 60.  

The weighted average grade of the course is calculated by the formula:

Weighted Grade = (w₁ × g₁ + w₂ × g₂ + w₃ × g₃ + …) / (w₁ + w₂ + w₃ +...)  

Weighted Grade = (20 × 4.33 + 20 × 3.00 + 60 × 1.67) / (20 + 20 + 60) = 2.64   

The table below shows how your letter grades convert to a numeric grade (4.0 scale) and percentage grade (% scale):  

Example 3: Grade type: Point  

Consider the following case:  

• For Assignment 1, the grade is 60 out of 80.  
• For Assignment 2, the grade is 30 out of 50.  
• For Homework, the grade is 120 out of 120.  
• For the Final exam, the grade is 60 out of 100.  

The formula to calculate the weighted average grade is:  

Weighted Grade = sum of real grade / sum of maximum grade  

Weighted Grade = (60 + 30 + 120 + 60) / (80 + 50 + 120 + 100) = 77.14  

Important Role of the Grade Calculator in Academic Path  

The Grade Calculator functions as a flexible tool that aids both educators and students, fostering efficiency and transparency. Knowing the average grade is essential for strategic decision-making in scenarios and setting achievable academic goals.  

Scenario Planning:  

Some Grade Calculators allow users to experiment with different scenarios. For instance, students can input hypothetical scores for future assignments or exams to see how they would impact their final grade. This helps in understanding how adjustments to upcoming assessments may impact the overall class performance.  

Teachers can use a Grade Calculator to streamline the grading process. By inputting scores and weights, the tool can quickly calculate overall grades, saving time and ensuring accuracy.  

Goal Setting:    

Users can set grade goals and determine the scores needed on upcoming assessments to achieve those goals. This application is particularly helpful for students who aim for a specific final course grade. Goal-setting helps students set realistic academic goals and understand the scores needed to achieve them. Knowing their current grade and having the ability to plan for future assessments can reduce stress for students.  

The Grade calculator provides the average score for a specific course. Students can use this result to calculate their GPA, which represents the average score across all their courses. In essence, the output from the Grade calculator acts as the input for the GPA calculator.

3 Outstanding Features of Grade Calculator  

Using our Grade Calculator is simple and straightforward, even if you are a first-time user. The Grade Calculator is crafted with the user in mind, offering many noticeable benefits:  

Customizable by Adding or Subtracting Assignments  

Recognizing the diversity of grading systems in different educational institutions, the tool offers customization options. Users have the flexibility to tailor the tool to their specific needs. For example, users can add as many assignments as they want, and adjust the weight to align with their school's unique grading system.  

Compatible with Multiple Devices  

The tool is accessible across various platforms to accommodate different user preferences and device types. It is available as both a web application and a mobile app. Users can access it conveniently from desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.  

Easy-to-Understand and Easy-to-Use Interface  

The user interface is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, prioritizing ease of use. Input fields are labeled logically, ensuring users can easily understand and input the required information. The overall design focuses on simplicity enhancing the overall user experience.  

To sum up, the Grade Calculator is considered a trusted tool for students and educators alike on their academic journeys. Its friendly interface and accurate calculations make it a valuable companion, helping everyone calculate the grade of the course effectively.  

Grade Calculator - FAQs  

What grade do i need to pass a college class  .

The grade needed to pass a college class varies depending on the grading system used by the schools, colleges, and academic institutions . In many cases, a passing grade is a D or higher, which is usually equivalent to a numerical grade of 60% or more. However, some programs or courses may require a higher minimum passing grade, so it's important to check your college's policies.  

How do you calculate the percentage grade?  

To calculate a percentage grade, you divide the points earned by the total points possible and then multiply by 100. For example, if you earned 85 points out of a possible 100, your percentage grade would be: (85/100) * 100 = 85%.  

How much will a 0 affect my grade?  

A zero can significantly impact your grade, especially if it's for a major assignment or test. Since a zero has a large weight in the calculation of your average score, it can pull down your overall grade significantly.  

How much will a 71 affect my grade?  

The impact of a 71 on your grade depends on several factors, such as the weight of the assignment or test in the overall course grade and the grading scale used by your instructor. If the 71 is for a major assignment or test and carries a significant weight in the course, it could have a noticeable effect on your overall grade, potentially lowering it. However, if the assignment is one of many and has a lower weight in the course, its impact may be less significant.

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Grade Calculator

Our weighted grade calculator shows your average and what to earn for the final grade you want. A timesaver if you don't know how to calculate grades!

Asgmt./Exam

Your current grade

The grade you want

Your final is worth

Related Calculators

FINAL GRADE

A grade of 80.5 or higher is needed for the remaining 40% of tasks to ensure a final grade of 85.

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Table of Contents

• Grade Calculators: Useful Tools to Show You What You've Accomplished and Help Plan Your Next Move
• Where You Are and How to Get Where You're Going

Saving Time

How to determine your weighted average, forming a game plan to reach your target grade, know what you need on the last big test, students and teachers often misunderstand weighted averages.

• It's Pretty Simple When You Have All the Data

Missing Grades Make the Math More Complicated

The reason we need these calculators, 6 ways to evaluate student progress, grade calculators: useful tools to show you what you've accomplished and help plan your next move.

A weighted grading calculator can be a lifesaver for students who need to know where they stand at any point in the grading period. These convenient programs save time and give students and teachers quick, accurate information. But what is it they do? This article will investigate what functions grade calculators perform, how they operate, and why we have grades in the first place.

Where You Are and How to Get Where You're Going

The three calculators above can help teachers and students answer urgent questions about grades in seconds. First, the Grade Calculator computes a weighted average for any course, accepting both number and letter grades.

In addition, the Final Grade Planning Calculator displays the grade needed on outstanding assignments to reach a target final grade. Also, the Final Grade Calculator determines what a student needs to score on their final exam to reach their target final grade.

Compared to the normal average, a weighted average requires more calculations. When you figure out a weighted average, the many numbers you use are given varying weights or values in relation to one another. This phenomenon occurs in most high-school and college courses, where different assignment types are worth different percentages of the final grade. A course grade calculator makes finding weighted averages quick and accurate.

In addition, many students become concerned near the end of a quarter, semester, or year. They often worry that they will not get a good grade, but they can rely on a Final Grade Planning Calculator to tell them how to perform to reach their desired goal.

Similarly, students often need to achieve a specific score on their final project or exam to get the desired grade. In this case, a Final Grade Calculator lets them know how hard they must work to get where they need to go.

Suppose a grading period is over and all grades are accounted for. In that case, a student can use the Grade Calculator to ensure the teacher made no mathematical errors. In this example, the student enters each assignment, grade, and weight into the calculator.

After clicking "Calculate," the Grade calculator provides a numerical and letter grade.

Average Grade: 87.7 (B+)

Provided there are still grades or categories outstanding, enter the target final grade and the weight percentage weight of the outstanding assignments.

After hitting "Calculate," the Final Grade Planning Calculator will display the current weighted average and the score required on outstanding work to achieve the desired final grade.

• Average grade: 85.0 (B).
• A grade of 95.0 is needed for the remaining 30% of tasks to ensure a final grade of 88.

When all grades other than the final exam are accounted for, enter the current weighted average grade, target grade, and final exam weight in the Final Grade Calculator. Click the Calculate button.

• Your current grade: 79
• The grade you want: 85
• Your final is worth: 35%

The Final Grade Calculator will display the final exam grade necessary to attain the desired final grade.

Result You will need a grade of 96.1 or higher on the final.

Weighted averages include numbers with different abilities to skew the average—thus the term "weighted." Unfortunately, many students (and some teachers!) don't understand how to calculate grades using weighted averages because they require more calculations than simple ones.

Suppose you're attempting to figure out your grade in a class where different assignments are worth varying percentages of your final grade. In that case, you might need to determine a weighted average. Whether the sum of your weights equals 1 (or 100%) will affect the method you employ.

It's Pretty Simple When You Have All the Data

To calculate a weighted average where the total weights equal 1, multiply each grade by its corresponding weight and add them all up. Rendered mathematically: g1(w1) + g2(w2) + g3(w3), and so on, where g is each grade and w is the corresponding weight. Of course, most syllabi list weights as percentages, so you will need to convert them into decimals first. For example, 25% equals 0.25; therefore, 100% equals 1.

The math is slightly different when some grades are missing, and the total weights equal less than one. This happens when you use the Final Grade Planning Calculator to determine your current weighted average and the score needed on the outstanding work to get the final grade you want.

Mathematically, you would figure out the weighted average the same way. However, you need to take the sum of each grade (weight) and divide it by the total weight of the known grades (in decimal form).

The formula would be Σgw/Σw where Σgw is the sum of each grade (weight) and Σw is the sum of all weights in decimal form.

The complexity of these calculations makes a weighted grade calculator a lifesaver for students.

Grading is a comparatively recent invention. Since 1785, students at Yale have been receiving the Latin equivalents of the words best (optimi), worse (inferiores), and worst (peiores). So, Yale was the first university in the United States to assign grades.

Before that, American colleges followed the Oxford and Cambridge models, which required frequent attendance at lectures and a weekly dialogue between the student and their proctor, both in person and in writing.

When the proctor or panel of other professors thought the students had shown an appropriate grasp of the subject, the course was declared complete. The faculty gave no grade. A prospective employer could only compare a student's qualifications through reference letters.

Universities experimented with a wide variety of systems during the 19th century. For example, Yale used scales ranging from four to nine points. The professors at Harvard experimented with 20 and 100-point scales before deciding that grouping students into five classes, with the lowest class failing the course, was the best they could do.

To assist professors in evaluating students, William and Mary public research University in the U.S. used the categories: "orderly, accurate, and attentive" or "they have learned little or nothing."

Because of the significant increases in immigration and the emergence of regulations requiring compulsory attendance, schools were overcrowded at the beginning of the 20th century. As a result, teachers and administrators needed an effective, standardized method for testing and grading many pupils. These circumstances naturally led to the nationwide standardization of school grading.

Our calculators use the percentages and letter grades common in the U.S. However, there are many other ways to assess student progress. Here is a quick list of common grading alternatives:

• A percentage ranging from 0% to 100%.
• Letter Grades with Variations (A, C+, B-).
• Standard-Based. Students receive marks relative to specific knowledge in the curriculum.
• Mastery-Based Grading. Students have the time to master a skill before moving to another.
• Narrative-Based Grading. Students receive lengthy written feedback about their performance in class.

It may seem that the student grading system has been around forever. However, before the 20th century, the grading systems we now know did not exist.

We still worry about how to determine our grades when each type of assignment has its own "weight." We wonder what we need to get on the final exam to pass.

Our grade calculator can't give you the knowledge to handle every assignment. But he can reassure you by telling you where you are and what results you need to achieve.

Grades Percentage Calculator

Introduction.

Welcome to the Grades Percentage Calculator! This handy tool helps you effortlessly determine your percentage score based on grades. Whether you’re a student curious about your overall performance or an educator simplifying the grading process, this calculator is designed to make your life easier.

Using the Grades Percentage Calculator is straightforward. Enter the grades and their respective weights in the input fields provided. Click the “Calculate” button, and voila! Your accurate percentage score will be displayed.

The calculator uses the weighted average formula to calculate the percentage:

Percentage=(Grade1×Weight1+Grade2×Weight2+…Total Weight)×100 Percentage = ( Total Weight Grade 1 ​ × Weight 1 ​ + Grade 2 ​ × Weight 2 ​ + … ​ ) × 100

Let’s consider an example to illustrate the calculator’s functionality. Suppose you have three grades with weights:

• Grade 1: 85, Weight 1: 30
• Grade 2: 92, Weight 2: 40
• Grade 3: 78, Weight 3: 30

The percentage is calculated as:

Percentage=(85×30+92×40+78×3030+40+30)×100 Percentage = ( 30 + 40 + 30 85 × 30 + 92 × 40 + 78 × 30 ​ ) × 100

Q: Can I use decimal values for grades?

A: Absolutely! The calculator accommodates decimal values for grades, ensuring precision in your percentage calculation.

Q: How do I interpret the percentage result?

A: The calculated percentage represents your overall performance based on the weighted average of your grades. Higher percentages generally indicate better performance.

In conclusion, the Grades Percentage Calculator is a valuable tool for students, educators, and anyone dealing with grades. Simplify your percentage calculations effortlessly and accurately with this user-friendly calculator.

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What are your grading percentages?

Discussion in ' General Education ' started by CatfaceMeowmers , May 7, 2016 .

• percentages

CatfaceMeowmers Companion

May 7, 2016

Since my first year is coming to an end, I have realized how many things I am changing next year - one is my grading percentages. I currently have this grading percentages: Homework - 10% Quizzes - 25% Classwork - 25% Tests - 40% However, I am a bit unorganized when it comes to determining what is what. I accidentally grade classwork as quizzes and vice versa. And I was told by veteran teachers that for every 10%, you need 1 grade, so I technically need 4 tests in a quarter (not very doable). Well, since I teach 6th math and homework is an everyday thing, I want to add more emphasis on homework. Here is what I'm thinking for next year. Homework - 20% Quizzes - 25% Tests - 30% Classwork - 25% I am going to do more small "classwork" assignments next year, since I barely do any classwork assignments. But adding more emphasis to homework. When my tests were 40%, one test would drag everyone down if done poorly (I do give minimum F's). It makes it seem like a college course, which I think is great, but many kids don't really realize how much the tests affect their grade until its too late, then I have to deal with parents asking if they can retake/correct tests which puts even more work on me. What are your grading percentages? Any tips or advice? I teach 6th math, so they are still getting out of that elementary stage.  

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otterpop Phenom

I do points, not percentages. Tests are worth the most points. Approximate points: Tests - 100 points each. Homework - 25 points each. Classwork - 25 points per activity. Quizzes - 25 points each.  

swansong1 Virtuoso

I grade tests 40%, quizzes 30%, classwork/participation 15% and homework 15% I rarely grade homework because I never know if the student has completed the work independently. I get many assignments turned in with the parent's handwriting. My students average a quiz each week and a test every two weeks in most of their subjects. All of their subjects have an activity workbook that I count as classwork. We use a Christian curriculum and there are more than enough opportunities for grades. We won't even use all of the workbook pages by the end of the year.  

jadorelafrance Cohort

Homework: 10% Classwork: 20% Quizzes: 30% Tests/Projects: 40% I try and have between 3-4 assignments in each category, except for tests. I have one test and one project for each marking period.  

shoreline02 Cohort

Our grading percentages are set by the district and are as follows for 4th grade: Assessments 50%, Classwork 35%, and Homework is 15%. We are required to submit two grades per subject each week and the program we use automatically figures out student grades using these percentages.  

Peregrin5 Maven

For me: Tests are 45%, Labs/Projects are 35%, Homework is 15%, and Participation/Organization is 5%. I allow test corrections (with reduced value) and submission of late projects/lab with reduced grades. We don't have requirements for how many things we put in the grade, but more is generally seen as better, but I generally have less assignments in the grade than my colleagues. I have students self-grade their homework for the most part.  

teacherintexas Maven

Tests are 60% and daily work is 40%. It's school policy so I can't change it.  

HistoryVA Devotee

Ours is set by district: 10% homework, 20% classwork, 15% quizzes, 30% tests, 10% Alternative Assessment, 15% final exam  

MLB711 Comrade

May 8, 2016

I use points too and I teach 6th Social Studies. Homework assignments are 10 each, quizzes vary from 15-35 points, and tests/projects are 100 or 105 points. Usually there are enough homeworks and quizzes to roughly equal a test for each unit so doing well on hw and quizzes can offset low test grades. I only grade homework on completion; students self-check their homework. I think that adding more graded class work is a great idea for math. You could also split up your units into smaller chunks to get more test grades in. Like you can do a test on area and perimeter only using whole numbers, then next week do another area and perimeter test with fractions and decimals. That way you can get more test grades in a marking period. Granted that reduces your number of quiz grades, but it's worth thinking about, especially for 6th grade.  

I'm actually surprised that so many people go by percentages. I would have thought more would use points.  

otterpop said: ↑ I'm actually surprised that so many people go by percentages. I would have thought more would use points. Click to expand...

mathmagic Enthusiast

Probably way different due to grade level, but ours is based solely on the 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 scale, and is done using a mixture of trend grading after those scores are entered, overall average, and teacher judgement to determine the report card grade.  

CharRMS Companion

This is also my first year teaching, and I too have noticed grading percentages I would like to change for next year. I use the following percentages. Tests = 40% Projects (I usually count final essays as projects) = 30% Quizzes = 20% Homework/Classwork/Participation = 10%  

May 11, 2016

Thanks everyone for your input! I still need to work with my team to see if we can use the same one next year. I am with veteran teachers so I don't think they'll move much, but why change something that's been working for years? I think since it was my first year, I was a bit overwhelmed by what all I had to grade/do. I think next year, I may stick with the same percentages and add more classwork/quiz grades Also, we have to use percentages because on our grade book, grades are weighed based on percentages we put in at the beginning of the year.  

Letsgo Rookie

50% tests, 20% homework, 20% quizzes, 10% performance. Department policy.  

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• Grade Calculators

Final Grade Calculator

Enter Final Info

My final exam is worth:

I want (at least) this in the class:

Enter Class Grades

Calculator Instructions

• In the top part of the form, enter how much your final exam is worth and the grade that you would like to get in the class. For example, your final test might be worth 20% of your overall grade and you want to get at least a 93% in the class. You would enter these numbers into the form.
• In the bottom half of the form, enter a description (optional) of the classwork, the grade received for that classwork, and the weight of the classwork. Most class grades are made up of several components such as homework assignments, tests, exams, quizzes, class participation, attendance, etc. For example, a class exam might be worth 10% of your grade and you received a 95% on the test. You would enter those values into the form.
• If you need more than four rows, press the "Add Row" button to add an additional line. You can add as many rows as you need.
• Once you have finished entering your grades, press the "Calculate" button and the grade you need on the final exam will be displayed.

Final Grade Formula

final grade = ((g wanted x w total ) - gw) / w final

w total = w 1 + w 2 + w 3 + ... + w final

w 1 = weight of assignment #1

w final = weight of final exam

gw = g 1 x w 1 + g 2 x w 2 + g 3 x w 3 + ...

g 1 = grade for assignment #1

g wanted = grade wanted in the class

Example Calculation

Let's say your class has the following grading plan.

Now let's assume you received the following grades on your classwork.

Finally, let's assume that you want to get a 90% in the class. To determine what you need to get on your final exam in order to get a 90% in the class, let's do some math using the formula above.

First add the weight of all the class assignments together including your final:

w total = 10% + 10% + 20% + 20% + 20% = 100%

Next, multiple the grade you received on each assignment by the weight of the assignment.

gw = (91% x 10%) + (85% x 10%) + (75% x 20%) + (95% x 20%) + (97% x 20%) = 7100%

Now, calculate what you need on the final exam:

final exam grade = ((90% x 100%) - 7100%) / 20% = 95%

This is how you manually calculate your final grade. Of course, you can make your life a little easier using the calculator above!

What if my class grade is based on points rather than percentages?

Let's assume you have the following class syllabus that is based on points.

Let's assume you received the following grades.

To enter these grades in the calculator above, you first need to calculate your grade percentage for each assignment using the following formula:

grade percentage = points earned / possible points x 100

So taking your mid-term test grade as an example, we get the following:

mid-term test = 190 points earned / 200 possible points x 100 = 95%

In the weight column of the calculator, you would enter the possible points for each assignment.

Assuming you wanted to get at least a 90% in the class and your final exam is worth 250 points (i.e.the weight), you would enter the following information into the calculator.

In this example, you would need to get a 93.6% on your final in order to get a 90% in the class.

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How can we improve this page.

Grade Calculator

Grade Calculator lets you find the weighted percentage and letter grades for all of your assignments or exams.

About Grade Calculator

Welcome to our Grade Calculator. It's a free and easy-to-use online tool to calculate weighted average grades. In addition, it lets you compute the grades in percentages, letters, or points.

Just select the grade type and input the assignment names, grades, and weights. Lastly, press the "Calculate" button to see the final result.

How to Calculate Weighted Grade?

To calculate a weighted grade, you need to assign different weights or percentages to each assignment. Such as projects, midterms, homework, and quizzes, and then multiply the grade earned in each assignment by its corresponding weight. Finally, add up these weighted grades and divide them by the sum of weights to obtain an overall weighted grade.

Here's an example:

Suppose there are three categories of assignments:

• Projects (weight of 35%)
• Midterms (weight of 40%)
• Homework (weight of 25%)

A student earns the following grades in each category:

• Projects - 75%
• Midterms - 90%
• Homework - 82%

Weighted grade = (project grade × 35%) + (midterm grade × 40%) + (homework grade × 25%) / 35 + 40 + 25

= (75 × 35) + (90 × 40) + (82 × 25) / 100

= (2625 + 3600 + 2050) / 100

= 8275 / 100

Therefore, the student's overall weighted grade for the course is 82.75% .

How to use Grade Calculator?

Before getting started, ask your teacher, how much each assignment category is worth. Also, you can check it out from the course syllabus. Because it will be needed for the grade calculation.

• Firstly, select the grade type. Our tool gives you access to enter the grades in three formats. Percentage, Letters, and Points. So, choose the required one of them.
• After choosing the grade type, enter the assignment category name. Such as projects, quizzes, homework, midterm, etc.
• Now enter the grade that you earned for each assignment. Also, you can input the grades in percentages, letters, or points.
• Enter the weight for each assignment category in percentage. For example, projects - 20%, midterms - 30%, etc.
• If you want to calculate the grades for more than five assignments, you can use the "Add Assignment" button to add more rows.
• In addition, you can find how much additional grade is needed to maintain the given average grade. It's an optional feature. You can leave it blank if you don't need it.
• Lastly, press the "Calculate" button to see the final result on your screen.
• Finally, you can see the average grade result with calculations and additional grades needed. Also, if you choose the letter grade, you will get the GPA result. Similarly, the tool will display the total grade result, if you choose a point grade.
• For new calculations, press the "Reset" button. It will refresh the calculator and gives a fresh new start.

Related Calculators

• Final Grade Calculator
• Test Grade Calculator
• College GPA Calculator
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Calculating a Weighted Grade

Calculating Grade Calculating Weighted Grade

Another basic type of grading scheme is a weighted program, where the course grade is divided into component parts, each part being worth some percentage of the total grade. The easiest way I've found to deal with this is to convert the grade components into points, and then work from there.

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MathHelp.com

What is a weighted grade?

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A weighted grade is one in which the different components of the grade (the homework, essays, etc) are each worth a certain percentage of the total grade, and these percentages do not correlate with the number of points awarded for the components.

For instance, a course may award 300 component points for homework and 200 component points for the midterm, but the homework points comprise only 15% of the overall grade, while the midterm comprises 20% . In a sense, the midterm's component points are worth more than the homework's component points; the midterm is weighted more heavily in the overall grade.

How do you calculate a weighted grade?

To calculate a weighted grade, consider each component of the overall grade separately, and use the fact that a perfect score in the course would mean that you'd earned 100% of the course points available.

• Each component of the overall grade (such as homework and quizzes) is a certain percentage of the overall grade. Convert this percentage to component points. For example, if homework is 30% of the overall grade, then assign 30 component points for homework.
• Add up the points you have earned for each component, and divide by the total number of component points available for that component, to get a percentage score for that component of the overall grade. For example, if the homework assignments add up to 500 points and you've earned 395 points, then you have earned 395 ÷ 500 = 0.79 , or 79% of the points available for this component.
• Multiply the component points by the percentage that you earned on that component. Continuing our homework example, 0.79 × 30 = 23.7 , so you have earned 23.7 course points of the 30 course points available for homework.
• Add the course points from each component to determine how many course points you have so far.
• Determine what grade you are seeking for the course, and how many points (out of 100 ) you need for this grade.
• Subtract the value in (4) from the value in (5). This tells you how many course points you need to get the desired grade.
• Divide the value in (6) by the component points for the Final. This tells you the percentage that you need to get on the Final in order to earn the desired grade overall.

It sounds complicated. Here's how it works in practice:

• A returning student has worked hard on her homework (even swallowing her pride and asking her high-school son for help), and has at least attempted all of the extra credit points available. She has earned 369 points (of the 413 available) on the homework, earned 172 of 200 quiz points, and got 91%, 81%, 79%, and 84%, respectively, on the four tests. She got 13 points on the extra credit project, which were added to her homework score. The homework is 30% of her grade, the quizzes are 10%, each of the tests is 10%, and the Final is 20%. She is hoping for a B in the course (on a standard ten-point scale). Can she get what she's hoping for?

Getting a perfect grade in the course would mean earning 100% of the course points. I'll convert this to being 100 course points.

The homework component of the course is worth 30% of the course grade, so I'll convert this to say that the homework component is worth 30 course points. Doing the same for all the course components (noting that the four tests are 10 course points each), I get:

homework: 30 course points

quizzes: 10 course points

tests: 40 course points

Final: 20 course points

Adding the extra-credit points into her homework grade, she has 369 + 13 = 382 of the 413 homework points. Doing the division, she has earned 382 ÷ 413 ≈ 0.924939… , or about 92.5% of the component points for homework. This component is worth 30 course points, so she has earned 0.925 × 30 =27.75 course points from the homework.

Following this reasoning and method, the course points earned from each component are found by working step-by-step as follows:

• homework ( 30 course points):

component points: 382 of 413

percentage: 382 ÷ 413 = 0.924939... , or about 92.5%

course points: 0.925 × 30 = 27.75

• quizzes ( 10 course points):

component points: 172 of 200

percentage: 172 ÷ 200 = 0.86 , or 86%

course points: 0.86 × 10 = 8.6

• tests ( 40 course points):

component points: 335 of 400

percentage: 335 ÷ 400 = 0.8375 , or 83.75%

course points: 0.8375 × 40 = 33.5

Then the total of her course points so far is:

27.75 + 8.6 + 33.5 = 69.85

(They didn't ask, but this means that she currently is at 69.85 ÷ 80 = 0.873125 , or about 87.3% in the course. She's doing pretty well so far.)

To get a B overall, she needs at least 80% of, or 80 of 100 , course points. She already has 69.85 course points, so she only needs another 80 − 69.85 = 10.15 course points, and the Final is worth 20 course points.

In other words, in order to get a B in the class, she needs to get at least 10.15 ÷ 20 = 0.5075 , or 50.75% , on the Final. Considering that she's done better than that (by quite a bit) on each component of the course, this result for the Final seems quite reasonable.

(They didn't ask but, to get an A, she'd need 90 − 69.85 = 20.15 course points, which is more course points than the Final is worth, so it's mathematically unreachable.)

She should easily be able to get a B.

Sometimes the computations may be thrown off a bit by dropping scores. For instance, I took a chemistry course where we were allowed to drop one of our test scores; heck, we didn't even have to show up for that test, if we didn't feel like it (and I didn't).

Computing the grade in such a situation is just like the previous examples, except that each student will probably be throwing out different scores. If your class has a grading scheme like this, you should definitely keep all of your papers, so you have proof of your scores.

• In a certain course, the quizzes are 15% of the grade, the lab score is 25%, the tests are 30%, and the Final is 30%. Students are allowed to drop the two lowest quiz scores and the one lowest test score. Course grades are on a standard ten-point scale: 90% or more is an A, 80% to 89% is a B, and so forth. Miguel has worked very hard in this class, but was hospitalized for a while near the beginning of the semester, so he's glad he can drop some of those lower scores. His sixteen quiz scores are 10, 10, 9, 6, [absent], 9, 8, 10, 7, 10, 10, 9, 9, 10, 8, and 9. His four test scores are 92, 73, 89, and 94. He was a butterfingers in the lab (don't even ask how many crucibles and pipettes he broke), so he earned only 71% for his lab grade. To get a scholarship next year, he really needs an A in this course. Can he do it?

Since the quiz component of the grade is the sum of the fourteen highest scores on the 10-point quizzes, the quiz component is out of 140 points. Dropping his 6 and the zero for when he was absent, Miguel's quiz total is 128 component points.

Since the test component is based on three tests, I can view this as being out of 300 points. Dropping the 73, his test total is 275 component points.

I'll calculate each component separately:

• quizzes ( 15 course points):

component points: 128 of 140

percentage: 128 ÷ 140 = 0.9142857... , or about 91.4%

course points: 0.914 × 15 = 13.71

• tests ( 30 course points):

component points: 275 of 300

percentage: 275 ÷ 300 = 0.916666.... , or about 91.7%

course points: 0.917 × 30 = 27.51

• lab ( 25 course points):

component points: 71 of 100

percentage: 71 ÷ 100 = 0.71 , or 71%

course points: 0.71 × 25 = 17.75

Then the total of his course points so far is:

13.71 + 27.51 + 17.75 = 58.97

So far, Miguel is running a 58.97 ÷ 70 = 0.84242857... , or about 84% in the course. To get an A overall, he needs 90% overall, which means he needs to do well on the Final. How well?

To get 90 grade-points in the course, he'll need 90 − 58.97 = 31.03 course points from the Final. But the Final is worth only 30 course points. So it is numerically impossible for him to get an A.

However, to get a B, he'll need only 80 − 58.97 = 21.03 course points from the Final, which is 21.03 ÷ 30 = 0.701 , or 70.1% , on the Final. Since he's done better than 70% on everything (outside of the time he was sick), he should have no trouble getting a B.

It is numerically impossible for Miguel to get an A, but he can easily get a B.

For the scholarship, it might help if he got a letter from his doctor regarding his illness and a testimonial from his instructor or his lab TA regarding his good performance once he got out of the hospital, and include these with his application. He shouldn't give up on the scholarship just because of his illness, because he really did do quite well the rest of the time.

Different grading schemes will have different details, and there are probably infinitely-many ways to design a syllabus, so the above examples can't hope to cover every situation. But if you can understand the basic methodology of the examples, you should be able to figure out what you need on the Final for most any course you take.

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Gradetracker

• Grade Calculator

1 Add Grading Policy Categories

2 add grading policy weights, 3 add scores, 4 get grade.

On the grade calculator, add each category using the drop down list provided for quick access. You can edit the name once it is created: Add Category

Whether your policy uses percentages or points, simply input the number in the box next to the category name without any symbols: 40.00 % X

Add the maximum score achievable for each graded entry for the category or grade type. For example, if each Exam is graded out of 100, then the max score is 100. If the Paper is graded out of 50, then the max score is 50. You can adjust the max score and entry name after you have added it: Max Score Add Exam

The checked box for skip indicates that the entry will not be counted towards the final grade: skip: X Adding a score removes the checkmark and it becomes a part of the grade calculations: skip: X

You can check the skip checkbox if you do not want to include the score in the grade. Continue to add scores for each category in the syllabus until all graded entries from assignments to exams are covered.

Using the grade policy breakdown and the scores inserted, we can display the current grade, the maximum, and minimum grades possible that you can achieve for your class. This powerful feature allows you to see how much effort is required to achieve your desired goal as you proceed through the course. Come back and use this calculator often so that you can stay on track!

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Grade Average Calculator - Your Essential Tool for Academic Success

Grade Calculator is a perfect solution for students, educators, and parents looking to accurately track and understand academic performance. Whether you're navigating different grading systems or calculating grade percentages, our comprehensive tool simplifies the process, making it easy to stay on top of your or your student's progress. Also its 100% free to use.

Understanding Different Grading Systems

Our world is diverse, and so are the grading systems used across various educational institutions. We've tailored our Grade Average Calculator to accommodate multiple grading systems, ensuring that no matter where you are or what system your school uses, you can accurately calculate your grades.

Grading Systems Covered:

Percentage-Based System:

Letter Grade System:

GPA System:

Grade Conversion Table

We use the below general conversion table between conversions between GPA, letter grades, and percentages. this table is a general guideline. Different schools and educational systems may have variations in their grading scales.

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If you're dealing with percentage-based assignments and exams, our Grade Percentage Calculator is an invaluable tool. Enter your scores, and let our calculator do the rest, providing you with an immediate and accurate assessment of your academic standing.

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Does homework really work?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: December 12, 2023

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You know the drill. It’s 10:15 p.m., and the cardboard-and-toothpick Golden Gate Bridge is collapsing. The pages of polynomials have been abandoned. The paper on the Battle of Waterloo seems to have frozen in time with Napoleon lingering eternally over his breakfast at Le Caillou. Then come the tears and tantrums — while we parents wonder, Does the gain merit all this pain? Is this just too much homework?

However the drama unfolds night after night, year after year, most parents hold on to the hope that homework (after soccer games, dinner, flute practice, and, oh yes, that childhood pastime of yore known as playing) advances their children academically.

But what does homework really do for kids? Is the forest’s worth of book reports and math and spelling sheets the average American student completes in their 12 years of primary schooling making a difference? Or is it just busywork?

Homework haterz

Whether or not homework helps, or even hurts, depends on who you ask. If you ask my 12-year-old son, Sam, he’ll say, “Homework doesn’t help anything. It makes kids stressed-out and tired and makes them hate school more.”

Nothing more than common kid bellyaching?

Maybe, but in the fractious field of homework studies, it’s worth noting that Sam’s sentiments nicely synopsize one side of the ivory tower debate. Books like The End of Homework , The Homework Myth , and The Case Against Homework the film Race to Nowhere , and the anguished parent essay “ My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me ” make the case that homework, by taking away precious family time and putting kids under unneeded pressure, is an ineffective way to help children become better learners and thinkers.

One Canadian couple took their homework apostasy all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. After arguing that there was no evidence that it improved academic performance, they won a ruling that exempted their two children from all homework.

So what’s the real relationship between homework and academic achievement?

How much is too much?

To answer this question, researchers have been doing their homework on homework, conducting and examining hundreds of studies. Chris Drew Ph.D., founder and editor at The Helpful Professor recently compiled multiple statistics revealing the folly of today’s after-school busy work. Does any of the data he listed below ring true for you?

• 45 percent of parents think homework is too easy for their child, primarily because it is geared to the lowest standard under the Common Core State Standards .

• 74 percent of students say homework is a source of stress , defined as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems.

• Students in high-performing high schools spend an average of 3.1 hours a night on homework , even though 1 to 2 hours is the optimal duration, according to a peer-reviewed study .

Not included in the list above is the fact many kids have to abandon activities they love — like sports and clubs — because homework deprives them of the needed time to enjoy themselves with other pursuits.

Conversely, The Helpful Professor does list a few pros of homework, noting it teaches discipline and time management, and helps parents know what’s being taught in the class.

The oft-bandied rule on homework quantity — 10 minutes a night per grade (starting from between 10 to 20 minutes in first grade) — is listed on the National Education Association’s website and the National Parent Teacher Association’s website , but few schools follow this rule.

Do you think your child is doing excessive homework? Harris Cooper Ph.D., author of a meta-study on homework , recommends talking with the teacher. “Often there is a miscommunication about the goals of homework assignments,” he says. “What appears to be problematic for kids, why they are doing an assignment, can be cleared up with a conversation.” Also, Cooper suggests taking a careful look at how your child is doing the assignments. It may seem like they’re taking two hours, but maybe your child is wandering off frequently to get a snack or getting distracted.

Less is often more

If your child is dutifully doing their work but still burning the midnight oil, it’s worth intervening to make sure your child gets enough sleep. A 2012 study of 535 high school students found that proper sleep may be far more essential to brain and body development.

For elementary school-age children, Cooper’s research at Duke University shows there is no measurable academic advantage to homework. For middle-schoolers, Cooper found there is a direct correlation between homework and achievement if assignments last between one to two hours per night. After two hours, however, achievement doesn’t improve. For high schoolers, Cooper’s research suggests that two hours per night is optimal. If teens have more than two hours of homework a night, their academic success flatlines. But less is not better. The average high school student doing homework outperformed 69 percent of the students in a class with no homework.

Many schools are starting to act on this research. A Florida superintendent abolished homework in her 42,000 student district, replacing it with 20 minutes of nightly reading. She attributed her decision to “ solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students .”

More family time

A 2020 survey by Crayola Experience reports 82 percent of children complain they don’t have enough quality time with their parents. Homework deserves much of the blame. “Kids should have a chance to just be kids and do things they enjoy, particularly after spending six hours a day in school,” says Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth . “It’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.”

By far, the best replacement for homework — for both parents and children — is bonding, relaxing time together.

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Grade Calculator

This grade calculator can compute your weighted grade based on the grades achieved for each component of the course. It can compute grades in various formats, including percentages, letter grades, or the point values of the grades. You can also choose to provide an overall grade you wish to achieve; if this option is selected, the calculator will compute the grade you need to achieve on your remaining assignments or exams, assuming that the total weight is 100. If you want to calculate the grade needed on the final exam to achieve a desired overall grade, please use our Final Grade Calculator .

What is a weighted grade?

A weighted grade is one in which all the assessments in a course have different degrees of importance, or "weight." For example, a course may involve homework, quizzes, exams, projects, presentations, and more. Typically, exams have a larger weight than quizzes and homework, since exam results are often considered to be the most important assessment in a course.

As an example, a course may have exams that account for 50% of the final grade, while quizzes make up 30%, and homework makes up 20%. This means that a 95 on a homework assignment and a 95 on an exam do not carry the same weight; a 95 on an exam has more of an effect on the final grade than a 95 on a homework assignment because it has a larger weight.

How weighted grade is calculated?

There are different formulas for calculating weighted grades depending on the information available. This calculator assumes a total weight of 100 and uses the following formula to calculate the weighted grade, where w i is the weight of the respective grade g i :

For example, given the following grades and respective weights,

the weighted grade is computed as follows:

92.75 is the current weighted grade based on the grades achieved thus far. Since the calculator assumes a total weight of 100, there are still remaining grades that together have a weight of 80. Once the values of the remaining grades and their weights are known, the final weighted grade can be computed in the same manner as above. In cases where the assessments (exams, quizzes, homework, etc.) have weights in terms of percentages, the weighted grade can be computed by finding the average grade attained for each assessment, then multiplying by their respective weights. Given that w i is the weight in percentage form of the average grade g i achieved in each respective assessment: Weighted grade = w 1 g 1 + w 2 g 2 + w 3 g 3 + ...+ w n g n For example, given that a student's homework is worth 20%, quizzes are worth 30%, and exams are worth 50%, if a student achieved an average grade of 85 on all their homework assignments, an average of an 87 on all their quizzes, and an average of 83 on all their exams, their weighted grade is calculated as follows:

(85)(0.2) + (87)(0.3) + (83)(0.5) = 84.6

Thus, their weighted grade is an 84.6.

What are the different grade formats?

The calculator uses three different grade formats: percentage, letter, and point value.

Percentages:

Percentage grades are grades expressed in percentage form. They range from 0-100%, and are calculated by dividing the score earned by the student by the total possible score on the assessment. For example, consider a multiple-choice exam in which all the questions are worth the same number of points. To calculate a student's percentage grade, divide the number of questions the student answered correctly by the total number of questions, then multiply by 100. This is the student's percentage grade. For example, if a student answered 39/50 questions correctly on an exam, their percentage grade is:

Percentage grades are related to letter grades through a grading scale. Grading scales vary throughout institutions, so an A at one school may not correspond to the same percentages as another. Refer to the table below in the "Letter grades" section to see how percentages and letter grades are related in one of the more commonly used grading scales in the US.

Letter grades:

Letter grades range from A-F in the US grading system, where an A is the highest achievable grade, and an F is a failing grade. However, even within the US system, there are variations in what each letter represents, as well as in the letters used in the system. For example, there are institutions that use grades such as A+, B-, C+, etc., while there are others that do not make use of plus and minus grades, and only use the letters A, B, C, D, and F. Also, depending on the institution, a D, or even a C, might constitute a failing grade for the course.

Letter grades correspond to a specific range of percentage values. The range of values assigned to a given letter differ based on the grading scale, but are generally pretty similar. The following table shows a commonly used grading scale, and the corresponding letter and percentage grades.

Point value:

Point value grades refer to grades where the points earned for all assessments in the course are summed; the grade achieved in the course is calculated by dividing the total number of points earned by the total number of points possible. There can be any number of points in this type of grading system.

For example, a course may have 10 homework assignments worth 20 points each, 5 quizzes worth 50 points each, and 3 exams worth 150 points each. To be able to determine the weight of each type of assessment, it is necessary to find the total number of points for all the assessments in the course. In this case,

10(20) + 5(50) + 3(150) = 900

Thus, the course has a total of 900 points making homework worth 22.2% of the final grade, quizzes worth 27.8%, and exams worth 50%. We can also determine how much each individual assessment is worth. For this example, each homework assignment is 2.2%, each quiz is 5.5%, and each exam is 16.67% of the final grade.

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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What we know about online learning and the homework gap amid the pandemic.

America’s K-12 students are returning to classrooms this fall after 18 months of virtual learning at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some students who lacked the home internet connectivity needed to finish schoolwork during this time – an experience often called the “ homework gap ” – may continue to feel the effects this school year.

Here is what Pew Research Center surveys found about the students most likely to be affected by the homework gap and their experiences learning from home.

Children across the United States are returning to physical classrooms this fall after 18 months at home, raising questions about how digital disparities at home will affect the existing homework gap between certain groups of students.

Methodology for each Pew Research Center poll can be found at the links in the post.

With the exception of the 2018 survey, everyone who took part in the surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

The 2018 data on U.S. teens comes from a Center poll of 743 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted March 7 to April 10, 2018, using the NORC AmeriSpeak panel. AmeriSpeak is a nationally representative, probability-based panel of the U.S. household population. Randomly selected U.S. households are sampled with a known, nonzero probability of selection from the NORC National Frame, and then contacted by U.S. mail, telephone or face-to-face interviewers. Read more details about the NORC AmeriSpeak panel methodology .

Around nine-in-ten U.S. parents with K-12 children at home (93%) said their children have had some online instruction since the coronavirus outbreak began in February 2020, and 30% of these parents said it has been very or somewhat difficult for them to help their children use technology or the internet as an educational tool, according to an April 2021 Pew Research Center survey .

Gaps existed for certain groups of parents. For example, parents with lower and middle incomes (36% and 29%, respectively) were more likely to report that this was very or somewhat difficult, compared with just 18% of parents with higher incomes.

This challenge was also prevalent for parents in certain types of communities – 39% of rural residents and 33% of urban residents said they have had at least some difficulty, compared with 23% of suburban residents.

Around a third of parents with children whose schools were closed during the pandemic (34%) said that their child encountered at least one technology-related obstacle to completing their schoolwork during that time. In the April 2021 survey, the Center asked parents of K-12 children whose schools had closed at some point about whether their children had faced three technology-related obstacles. Around a quarter of parents (27%) said their children had to do schoolwork on a cellphone, 16% said their child was unable to complete schoolwork because of a lack of computer access at home, and another 14% said their child had to use public Wi-Fi to finish schoolwork because there was no reliable connection at home.

Parents with lower incomes whose children’s schools closed amid COVID-19 were more likely to say their children faced technology-related obstacles while learning from home. Nearly half of these parents (46%) said their child faced at least one of the three obstacles to learning asked about in the survey, compared with 31% of parents with midrange incomes and 18% of parents with higher incomes.

Of the three obstacles asked about in the survey, parents with lower incomes were most likely to say that their child had to do their schoolwork on a cellphone (37%). About a quarter said their child was unable to complete their schoolwork because they did not have computer access at home (25%), or that they had to use public Wi-Fi because they did not have a reliable internet connection at home (23%).

A Center survey conducted in April 2020 found that, at that time, 59% of parents with lower incomes who had children engaged in remote learning said their children would likely face at least one of the obstacles asked about in the 2021 survey.

A year into the outbreak, an increasing share of U.S. adults said that K-12 schools have a responsibility to provide all students with laptop or tablet computers in order to help them complete their schoolwork at home during the pandemic. About half of all adults (49%) said this in the spring 2021 survey, up 12 percentage points from a year earlier. An additional 37% of adults said that schools should provide these resources only to students whose families cannot afford them, and just 13% said schools do not have this responsibility.

While larger shares of both political parties in April 2021 said K-12 schools have a responsibility to provide computers to all students in order to help them complete schoolwork at home, there was a 15-point change among Republicans: 43% of Republicans and those who lean to the Republican Party said K-12 schools have this responsibility, compared with 28% last April. In the 2021 survey, 22% of Republicans also said schools do not have this responsibility at all, compared with 6% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Even before the pandemic, Black teens and those living in lower-income households were more likely than other groups to report trouble completing homework assignments because they did not have reliable technology access. Nearly one-in-five teens ages 13 to 17 (17%) said they are often or sometimes unable to complete homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection, a 2018 Center survey of U.S. teens found.

One-quarter of Black teens said they were at least sometimes unable to complete their homework due to a lack of digital access, including 13% who said this happened to them often. Just 4% of White teens and 6% of Hispanic teens said this often happened to them. (There were not enough Asian respondents in the survey sample to be broken out into a separate analysis.)

A wide gap also existed by income level: 24% of teens whose annual family income was less than $30,000 said the lack of a dependable computer or internet connection often or sometimes prohibited them from finishing their homework, but that share dropped to 9% among teens who lived in households earning $75,000 or more a year.

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

We should be talking more about dumbed-down grades in schools

The issue has been festering for decades. Studies, conferences and PTA gossip regularly reveal grades awarded by teachers on report cards that distort how much students are learning. We sometimes complain but do little about it.

Now researchers Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have taken this exasperation to a new level, with a detailed report wondering why we demand so little of our students when their school hours are critical to their futures.

We journalists are as much at fault as anybody. We often report about political fights over sexual and racial references in classes and textbooks but mostly ignore easy grading designed to keep students and their families happy rather than motivated to make schools work.

In their report — “ Think Again: Does ‘equitable’ grading benefit students? ” — Coffey and Tyner bemoan policies such as those that forbid penalties for late work or ensure nothing that students do will be marked less than 50 percent despite evidence many kids don’t understand the lesson.

The researchers admit that some adjustments in traditional grading can be useful. “But top-down policies that make grading more lenient are not the answer, especially as schools grapple with the academic and behavioral challenges of the postpandemic era,” they write.

“No-zero mandates, homework grading bans and prohibitions on penalties for late work and cheating … tend to reduce expectations and accountability for students, hamstring teachers’ ability to manage their classrooms and motivate students, and confuse parents and other stakeholders,” the report states.

They note a 2004 study of more than 5,000 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in Alachua County, Fla., by professors David Figlio and Maurice Lucas that found students assigned to teachers who graded more strictly “went on to experience greater test score growth in both reading and math.” A 2020 study by American University’s Seth Gershenson of eighth- and ninth-grade Algebra I students in North Carolina found the same thing happening, both in the tough teachers’ classes and subsequent math courses.

Standardized tests that measure what children actually know are exposing a tendency to cover up failure. Gershenson’s report on grading standards in North Carolina found that from 2006 to 2016 more than one-third of students awarded a B in algebra failed to score proficient on a state algebra exam. Nationally the average ACT composite score in 2021 was the worst of any year since 2010, while the average grade-point average of ACT test takers that year was the highest ever reported, 3.4 on a four-point scale.

By contrast, the average U.S. high school grade-point average increased from about 2.6 in 1990 to about 3.0 in 2021.

In the 2000s and increasingly in the 2010s, educators who felt tough grading was creating an unhealthy dislike of school pushed for eased requirements. Books by grade-reform gurus such as Ken O’Connor, Cornelius Minor and Joe Feldman sold well and led to many large districts banning zeros on assignments.

Many educators say that trend has gone too far. In his report on disappointing results in North Carolina, Gershenson quoted one teacher saying: “We just end up, as teachers, it’s easier — and this is awful to say — it’s easier just to pass the kid than to actually give valid feedback, if that makes sense.”

In some places, the equitable grading movement has weakened one of the most successful school reforms of the past 50 years — improving high school learning by getting more students into college-level courses such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate.

Noah Lipman teaches courses in AP U.S. history, African American studies, government and macroeconomics to juniors and seniors at Highlands High School in San Antonio. Almost all of the school’s students are from low-income Hispanic families.

Teachers in several parts of the country have reported that disadvantaged students benefit from having to struggle in AP courses. Because of their exertions, they argue, the students can emerge better prepared for college, even if they do not pass the AP final exams.

Knowing this, Lipman helped create a rule at Highlands High that no student would be allowed to drop any AP class in the first six weeks. Administrators, however, have ignored that restriction, he said. They often pull his students out of AP much sooner because of fear that low grades would discourage them, a central tenet of the equitable grading movement.

“Between 10 to 15 percent of my students are dropped from my roster in the first four weeks,” he said. “Often, I never even know the student is being dropped. I am never part of the conversation.”

San Antonio schools spokeswoman Laura R. Short said the district provides “access to AP courses for all of our students.” But she did not explain why district supervisors were pulling students out of AP courses despite the protests of teachers like Lipman other than to say parents initiated the requests. Lipman said he had not seen that in his classes.

Politicians find it easy to inspire anger in voters about sexual and racial topics in classrooms. But it is harder to get those same voters excited about too many students getting easy A’s.

The issue has become a part of American school culture as indelible as pop quizzes and parents night, although not much has been done about it. It goes at least as far back as 1913, when educational psychologist and elementary school textbook editor Guy Montrose Whipple attacked “the reliability of the marking system” as “an absolutely uncalibrated instrument.”

More emphasis on stretching young minds rather than padding their grade-point averages would help. Challenging tests such as AP and IB finals are graded by impartial experts. That motivates more effort than final exams in regular classes that are graded by students’ own teachers, who know those children and tend to be more lenient.

But so far school boards appear to have too many other topics on their agendas to make more demanding work for students a priority.

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170 percent of average - early hurricane season predictions worrisome.

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GULF OF MEXICO - SEPTEMBER 27: In this NASA handout image taken by Moderate Resolution Imaging ... [+] Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, Hurricane Ian enters the Gulf of Mexico at 16:00 UTC on September 27, 2022, just hours after it moved off the northwest coast of Cuba. The storm is expected to bring a potentially life-threatening storm surge and hurricane-force winds. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

Each year the Atlantic hurricane season happens, and this year will be no exception. Another staple of the year is seasonal predictions of hurricane activity. The tropical meteorologists at Colorado State University are usually first out of the gate. Earlier this week, they released their prediction for the upcoming season, and it is pretty ominous. The group expects activity to be 170% of the average. That’s more than the 130% of average number that we saw in 2023.

Forecast for 2024 Atlantic hurricane season activity

According to a press release from CSU Marketing and Communications, “Colorado State University hurricane researchers are predicting an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season in their initial 2024 forecast.” They predict twenty-three named storms. The average over the past 30 years is around fourteen. Of those, five are expected to be a category 3 or higher storm. In a nutshell, the team attributes much of their forecast to warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic basin. The press release goes on to say that their researchers are bullish for a “very active” Atlantic hurricane season because of the expected transition from El Niño to La Niña by late summer. Weather patterns tend to be more favorable for hurricane development during La Niña.

La Niña influence on the Atlantic hurricane season.

I wish this outlooked surprised me, but it has been pretty obvious that the upcoming hurricane season has the potential to be a big problem. In February I wrote a piece in Forbes.com signaling this possibility and for the very reasons mentioned. I also pointed out that 2023, a very active season, saw 20 named storms in the Atlantic basin under less favorable, on average, El Niño conditions. Oh by the way, an extremely rare tropical storm (Akará) already happened this year in the South Atlantic Ocean. That almost never happens off the Brazilian coast, but waters are warm there too.

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TARPON SPRINGS, FLORIDA - AUGUST 30: In an aerial view, a fire is seen as flood waters inundate the ... [+] downtown area after Hurricane Idalia passed offshore on August 30, 2023 in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Hurricane Idalia is hitting the Big Bend area of Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

CSU hurricane expert Dr. Phil Klotzbach says, “Our analog seasons were all very active Atlantic hurricane seasons.” What he is saying is that 2024 is showing similarities to 1878, 1926, 1998, 2010 and 2020, and those were all active seasons. For this reason, CSU scientists have high confidence in its projection of 170% of average. Other organizations like NOAA will soon release their seasonal predictions, and I expect them to be similar. CSU will also update its forecasts in June, July, and August.

How 2024 sea surface temperatures in 2024 compare to previous years.

Current sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Basin are already warmer than normal and exceed where they were at this time last year so buckle up. It is also important to keep seasonal predictions in perspective:

• It only takes one storm to be a “bad”season for someone.
• Accuracy can vary, but with strong signals apparent this year and in previous analogue years, uncertainty is lower.
• A large number of storms could form, but how many will make landfall?
• Use the information at hand for general planning, but pay attention to evolving conditions as the season gets going.

Current sea surface temperature anomalies (April 3rd, 2024) in the North Atlantic

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