Math question

[Ksandra]

So this is irritating me, and hopefully someone can explain it, so I can figure out what to do.

It deals with grading percentages. I have different grading categories (homework, classwork, etc.) that are each assigned a percent for how much they are worth. The percentages add up to 100%. My project category is worth 10% of the students' grade. They just did a writing project worth 135 points. I have an honors student who got a perfect score, and somehow that brought her grade DOWN about .7%.

How can that happen? It doesn't make sense for her grade to go lower from getting 100%.

[Blubbartron]

Was/is this student over the normal points for the category you just added to? I.e. she had extra credit in the category.

The only way this should be possible (other than a programming/calculation error) is if the category is supposed to be 10% of your total grade, but she had earned extra credit in the category giving her above 10% relative weight in the grading scale. Then, when you add something that's ONLY 100% credit, you're actually dropping down her overall grade in that category.

[Byrthnoth]

It has to be a calculation error unless (as Blubb suggests) she was over 100% for that category already.

Do you use some proprietary grading software, or a something like an excel sheet?

[Churchill]

This honestly happens all the time when we look at our online scores and things are weighted differently.

For example, getting a say, 94% on a Chem worksheet would bring my grade down from 93.9% to 93.6% - and this is without extra credit or anything like that.

This is on ASU's grading system and a local community colleges.

[Ksandra]

Was/is this student over the normal points for the category you just added to? I.e. she had extra credit in the category.

The only way this should be possible (other than a programming/calculation error) is if the category is supposed to be 10% of your total grade, but she had earned extra credit in the category giving her above 10% relative weight in the grading scale. Then, when you add something that's ONLY 100% credit, you're actually dropping down her overall grade in that category.

Ok this is what happened, thanks. I don't give my honors students extra credit. BUT there was an assignment given over the summer and I was never told the guidelines or anything about the project, so at the very beginning of the year I gave whoever handed something in some bonus points. I forgot about it. XD