Ah, it's that time of year again, when most students at the majority of American colleges and universities are seeing their spring finals come to a close. In the traditional 10-point American grading scale, which is used at the majority of both public and private universities in America, with some exceptions, students must get a 90 or above on an assignment in order to get an A on that assignment. In many parts of the world, this system of grading would be seen as harsh, while in other parts of the world, it may be seen as not pushing students hard enough to succeed. At this heralded time of year, when American students can finally go home or graduate, leaving the stress of all of their work behind them, at least for a little while, it seems like the proper time to provide different perspectives on grading throughout the world.

For the sake of time and simplicity, I will not be including the GPA system used in America or in other countries. Grading scales in other countries will be explained using their American equivalent, and most of them are evident of post-secondary school grading scales used in other countries.

The American Grading Scale

There are a few different grading scales in America, which can become more complex, when you consider grading scales with a + and - system, but, fundamentally, the main grading scales used in America are the 10-point grading system and the 7-point grading system. The highest a student can get on an assignment is a 100, of course, and the lowest a student can get is a 0. Under the 10-point grading system, a student must get between a 100 and a 90 for an A, between an 89 and an 80 for a B, and so on, A student fails once they get a 59 or less on an assignment. In some alterations of this system, a student fails if they get lower than a 65, with the D range being only 69 to 65. Under the 7-point grading system, which is more rigid, a student must get between a 100 and a 93 for an A, between a 92 and an 85 for a B, and so on, with anything below a 70 being a failing grade. Post-secondary schools in America traditionally use the 10-point grading system.

Equally Rigid Grading Scales

All of the following countries use a 10-point grading scale: South Korea, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Honduras, and Saudi Arabia. Many countries use a 10-point grading scale with some alterations, such as that an A is 80-100 rather than 90-100. Such grading scales are less rigid than America's 10-point grading scale, so they will not be included in this section.

Less Rigid Grading Scales

Many European countries do not even give students a set number grade. Instead, they tell them whether they did sufficient or insufficiently without putting a number to that determination. There are different levels, or grades, given, still. For example, in Austria, a student can receive the following grades: Very Good, Good, Satisfactory, Sufficient, or Insufficient. Essentially, Very Good and Good are both A's, Satisfactory is a B, Sufficient is a C, and Insufficient is an F. Many countries outside of Europe, such as Uganda, Zimbabwe, Australia, Jamaica, Barbados, Hong Kong (which isn't really a country, but a semi-independent state), use grading systems similar to the European scale that does not use exact numbers when giving students their grades. Though many countries in and outside of Europe have grading systems like this, some European countries, such as Great Britain, do not. In the UK, anything from a 100 to a 70 is an A. Any grade between a 59 and a 50 is a B. Essentially, America's high F is Britain's B. In order to fail, a student must get a 39 or below.

Many Middle Eastern countries have grading scales that seem to be a mix of the 10-point grading scale and the less rigid systems in Europe, such as Great Britain's. In Afghanistan, a student must get a 90-100 to get an A, but only fails when they get a 49 or below. In Jordan, anything from 80-100 is an A, and a student doesn't fail until they get a 49 or below. In Iraq, science/technology programs are less rigid in grading, at least when it comes to what counts as an A, then in all other post-secondary school programs. In science-technology programs, 70-100 is an A, as opposed to 80-100 in other programs.

India has one of the least rigid grading scales that I have seen, with anything 70-100 being an A, anything from 50-69 being a B, anything from 35-49 being a C, and anything from 0-32 being an F. In some institutions, grades even lower than 35 can be considered a C. The only countries that I found with a lower passing grade were Sri Lanka and Myanmar, where a student has to get a 29 or lower in order to fail. Pakistan may be the most generous in giving out A's, as anything between a 60 and a 100 is an A, under their scale. A student must get a 34 or below in order to fail in Pakistan.

More Rigid Grading Scales

In the Philippines, in order to get an A, in order to get an A, a student must get between a 91 and a 100. This sounds similar to the U.S.'s ten point scale until you go further in. In the Philippines, 85-89 is a B, 75-84 is a C, and anything below a 75 is a failing grade. This essentially means that an American student's C is a Filipino student's F.

One Interesting Thing to Note

Though, in America, we have painted this image of Asia having tougher grading scales and curricula (yes, that's somehow the plural of curriculum), than us, by doing research for this article, I have learned that the American system of grading is actually tougher on students than many Asian systems are, at least when it comes to grading scales. In China, a student can get an 85 and still have an A, though they fail if they get a 59 or below, which is the case in the U.S. In Vietnam, students can get an 80, essentially, and still have an A, and don't fail until they get a 40 or below. India and Pakistan have extremely lax grading scales, as does Bangladesh, where, as in Pakistan, anything between a 60 and a 100 is an A. Taiwan and Japan both give students the ability to get an 80 and still get a B, and those students won't fail until they get a 59 or below, which is similar to the U.S. Essentially, all of the Asian countries that I looked at had grading scales eerily similar to the U.S.'s, such as South Korea's, or were laxer than the U.S.'s grading scale, which the vast majority of them were. However, the Philippines has a pretty hardcore grading scale, as you may have read a bit back in the article.

Very few countries that I saw in my research had grading scales as rigid or more rigid than the grading scales used in America. The Philippines was the only notable nation whose grading scale was remarkably more gnarly than the U.S.'s, though countries such as South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and others had grading scales essentially the same as the 10-point scale commonly used in American post-secondary institutions.

Through this article, I simply wish to provide data and insight into the various grading scales used throughout the world. The grading system that we have in America is not the only one that drives students to succeed, and that is something that I find very interesting to note. Over the last couple of decades, America has fallen from having the best overall education in the world to having the seventh best overall educational system in the world. All five of the countries with the top five educational systems in the world, namely Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and France, in that order, have less rigid grading scales than the U.S. Though there are a variety of reasons as to why their educational systems are ranked above America's, this shows that the American grading system does not use the only grading scales that can be used in order to achieve success. It's always interesting to look outside of ourselves. Sometimes we find answers to our problems, and even if we are not able to do so, it's still interesting to note that other people are able to live quite contently with systems that are different than the ones we live with.

To every student out there, including college students, high school students, or otherwise, I wish you good luck on your finals, and if you've already finished them, as I have, I hoped that you passed all of them. Viva la vida, my friends!

Information collected from the following sites:

https://www.wes.org/gradeconversionguide/index.asp and https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-education