Math Help
 

I am trying to figure out what grade my child needs to earn on his final exam in order to get a B in his class.
The final is 15 percent of his grade.
He currently has a 91.
I tried doing the math the way I thought it should be done, but the way I did it, he could get a failing grade on the exam and still get a B. That does not seem right to me.

I did (91)(.85) + .15x = grade he wants and solved for x.
That seems too simplistic.
Help?

Re: Math Help
 

It looks right to me. He only needs 3 out of 15 points to get a B. Which is like a 20 on the exam.

---------- Post added at 09:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 AM ----------

It looks like he could get an A with a grade of 84.

Re: Math Help
 

We are having lots of conversations on this right now. Do you want to keep your A, B, or C, my child? You need to do X in the next 8 days. (some of her teachers are ending the semester next week. some aren't ending it until it's officially over in mid-January. :nails)

Re: Math Help
 

That looks right to me, also. In some classes the final exam can make it break your, in others it hardly matters.


If he got a zero on the exam, he'd have a 77 for his final grade. So even a 50 would mean an 84.

Re: Math Help
 

Do you know the scale? Or did I miss something? :scratch for my high school child it’s no longer 90+=A, 80+=B... and in college my kid needed a 90 to pass some classes.

However my experience in life rings true to what Lisa said. My high schooler missed an exam and still Has a B+ in a Class that offers extra credit :doh.

Re: Math Help
 

I don't!
It is for his dual enrollment English.
He got a 93 on his final, which was actually a paper.
He is thrilled.
I was assuming 90 was an A, but maybe it is not

Re: Math Help
 

:woohoo that’s awesome. You may be right but I couldn’t tell if public or private high school or college

Here everything is different. Technical college is an entirely different bear here as it’s based on career regulations and high school is based on IB or AP regulations as well. I honestly have zero clue if it’s state or federal or per teachers choice. I think private and charter high schools determine their own standards for grades as we have some schools that grace fail, satisfactory and excellent. And sometimes just P(pass)/F(Fail).

Re: Math Help
 

It depends entirely on the instructor but some institutions have a scale that all instructors must follow (though that is becoming more rare).

Traditionally in the US
93-100 A
85-92 B
78-84 C
67-83 D
0-66 F

Many instructors do the 90-100 A, 80-89 B, etc.

Re: Math Help
 

I’m horrified by 92 being a B. Wow. Teens have enough stress.

Re: Math Help
 

The whole concept of grades has changed drastically over the generations. A C traditionally meant average. Most high school students would carry a 2.0ish GPA and didn't feel badly at all. A 4.0 was extremely rare and someone actually earning a 4.0 would make the newspaper.

Then our conceptions of grades changed and anything less than a B means the student didn't try. A student who tries their best and completes every assignment now expects at least a B-.

The purpose and expectation of education has changed (for the better, in my opinion).

---------- Post added at 03:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 PM ----------

A meant excellent
B meant above average
C meant average
D meant below average
F meant failing

So the bell curve of performance had the majority of students earning C's.

Re: Math Help
 

I just looked it up, and I am pretty sure they are on a 10 point grade scale at the community college. I am glad, because this is the first "real" outside class he has taken. He did his other English classes in a class outside the house, but it was still just a homeschool class, even though the teacher assigned the grades, it was my choice to keep it. And his classes in co-op are still just homeschool classes. He has all A's except for math, so I was a little worried he would get a C or something and it would look funny on his transcript, and like I just made up all his other grades. This was a hard earned A. I am proud of him not because of the grade, because honestly, I don't care and he is not trying to get into a 4 year college anyway, but because he worked really hard and took advantage of free tutoring resources, emailed his teacher to ask questions, and attended some extra class meetings if the teacher offered them, all on his own initiative.

---------- Post added at 06:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:35 PM ----------

Yes, this is so true! With some classes being weighted at 6points, you can easily get all C's and have a 4.0.

And honestly, if kids meet expectations, an A is expected.
It was like that when I taught school 20 years ago, too! I had so many parents complain when their kids got 80's on daily quizzes! (They were only 5 problems, given to see how the class was doing on learning the material so I would know what to reteach. It their entire quiz average was only like 10 percent of their final grade, and it as math, right or wrong. But they did not like getting 80's.

Re: Math Help
 

Yes, I had parents who were so mad at me that their child didn't get an A even though they turned in every homework assignment. On many of the assignments they wrote some random number for their answer and showed no work at all. So they got a 0 on many assignments and did poorly on the tests because they hadn't learned the material. But since they "turned in all their work" they thought they deserved an A.