Scenario: Final Calculated Grade Using Weighted System

You are teaching an introductory science course in which students are graded on four labs, their participation in discussion topics, and a final examination. You allow students to drop their lowest grade on a lab. You also provide bonus grades to students who act as moderators for discussion topics. If a student does not submit a lab, you leave it ungraded and treat ungraded items as a grade of 0.

You set up grade items and a Labs category with the following properties:

Labs Lab 1 Lab 2 Lab 3 Lab 4 Discussions Moderator Exam
Category Labs Labs Labs Labs Labs None None None
Maximum points n/a 10 10 10 10 10 5 100
Weight 50% (for entire Labs category)
25% 25% 25% 25%
Bonus n/a No No No No No Yes No
Drop lowest 1

You assign the following grades for the student Frank Catcher:

Labs Lab 1 Lab 2 Lab 3 Lab 4 Discussions Moderator Exam
Frank Catcher n/a 0 8 0 7 8 3 71

You release the calculated final grade to Frank. It is calculated as follows:

Grade item Calculation
Lab 1 = Dropped

Note: Dropped grade items are not included in calculations; grades are calculated as if the item does not exist.

Lab 2 = 8/10*25/(25+25+25)*100

= 26.67% towards the category

= 26.67*.5

= 13.33% towards the final grade

Note: Lab 1 is worth 33.33% of the Labs category even though it is assigned a weight of 25%. This is because the lowest lab grade is dropped and there are only three labs contributing to the category.

Lab 3 = 0/10*25/(25+25+25)*100

= 0% towards the category

= 0*.5

= 0% towards the final grade

See the note for Lab 1.

Lab 4 = 7/10*25/(25+25+25)*100

= 23.33% towards the category

= 23.33*.5

= 11.67% towards the final grade

See the note for Lab 1.

Discussions = 8/10*10

= 8% towards the final grade

Moderator = 3/5*5

= 3% on top of the final grade

Note: Bonus items are added to the final grade after other calculations. Do not include a bonus item’s weight in your total when balancing your gradebook.

Exam = 71/100*40

= 28.4% towards the final grade

Calculated Final Grade = 13.33+11.67+8+3+28.4

= 64.4%