Before presenting an assignment, the teacher determines the criteria for each letter grade ranging from A to E. The A is the highest, and E is the lowest. Criteria may be based on number of questions answered correctly or a subjective assessment by the teacher on the work meeting the goals of the assignment. To compute a grade that is the average of letter grades for numerous assignments, each letter is assigned a point value with A being 4; B, 3; C, 2; D, 1; and E, 0. Each student's scores for the assignments are added, and the total is then divided by the number of assignments to determine an average. The letter grade equivalent for that average is assigned to the student.
The teacher grades each assignment and rates it with a percentage score. The percentage is based on how many answers are correct out of the total, or specific grading rubric the teacher defines. These percentages give a more precise ranking of the student because the score is from 0 to 100, instead of being chosen from among five letters. The teacher adds the percentages, and divides them by the number of assignments to determine the average percentage, which is the student's grade.
The satisfactory and unsatisfactory grading system is subjective. The teacher rates the student's work on a scale she provides before the assignments are assigned. Each assignment is rated on a scale such as excellent, very good, satisfactory, poor and unsatisfactory. The excellent score is the highest, and unsatisfactory is the lowest. That scale is assigned point values with excellent being 5; very good, 4; satisfactory,3; poor, 2; and unsatisfactory, 1. The scores are totaled and averaged for a final score. This scoring system is used by some elementary schools to grade effort of the students, while performance is graded using either the letter or percentage system.
Teachers evaluate the overall performance of the student in the pass/fail system. There are only two grades assigned, with pass indicating completing the course successfully and fail indicating the student did not perform adequately. The teacher evaluates all assignments and interaction with the student throughout the course when assigning these grades. This system also can be subjective, because a numeric scale is not used for a final grade.