Grade (education)

:For meanings of GPA other than Grade point average, see GPA (disambiguation).

Germany

In Germany, a 6-point grading scale is used, where:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• 1 (excellent) is the best possible grade.
• 2 (good) is the next-highest.
• 3 (satisfactory) indicates "average" performance.
• 4 (sufficient) is the lowest passing grade.
• 5 (unsatisfactory) is the higher of two failing grades.
• 6 (poor) is the lowest possible grade.

Five and six are both considered to be failing grades, though in earlier years students are not required to repeat classes with '5' grades if they perform well in other classes. Grades '1' to '5' can be suffixed with '+' and '-'. To calculate averages of suffixed grades, they are assigned fractioned values, where '1' is 1.0, '1-' is 1.3, '2+' is 1.7, '2' is 2.0, '2-' is 2.3 and so on. As a 1.0 average is considered perfect, there is no such thing as an '1+'.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In school reports, only unmodified integer grades may be used; they are written in text form:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• 1 sehr gut
• 2 gut
• 3 befriedigend
• 4 ausreichend
• 5 mangelhaft
• 6 ungenügend

"In-between" grades such as '1-2', '2-3', '3-4' etc., which used to count as 1.5, 2.5 and so on, have largely been discontinued due to ambiguities when converting the averages back to integer values.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the final classes of Gymnasiums the grades are converted to numbers ("points") in order to calculate the average for Abitur. In this case an '1+' exists (and counts as 15), '1' is 14, '1-' is 13, '2+' is 12, etc. up to '5-' is 1 and finally '6' is 0. Because 1+ exists in this system, "ultra-perfect" Abitur averages below 1.0 are possible. When the point system is used, 4 (5 points) is the lowest passing grade, and 4- (4 points) the highest failing grade.

Related Topics:
Gymnasiums - Abitur

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For law students at German universities, a similar system is used that comprises one more grade that is inserted between 2 ("gut") and 3 "befriedigend," named "vollbefriedigend." This is due to the fact that the grades "gut" and "sehr gut" are extremely rare, so an additional grade was created below "gut" to increase differentiation. Every grade is converted into points very much like the Gymnasium system described above, starting at 18 points (excellent) down to 0 points (poor). 4 points is the highest passing grade.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In converting German grades to the A-F scale, a 1 = A, ... 4 = D scale is often used (with 5 and 6 both converted to Fs) but this conversion is nearly never accurate, since, for example, a grade of '2' is usually more difficult to obtain in Germany than a 'B' in the United States. (The average grade in Germany is normally supposed to be around or a bit above 3, whereas in the US average grades are often supposed to be between B- and B.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~