Has it ever occurred to you that you have to go over and beyond on a test to get an A? Ever since the 4-point grading scale happened, that has been the case.

School used to be about learning, but now it seems that it’s only about passing. Why should you have to over explain yourself to get an A? Isn’t coming to school, trying hard, doing your homework, and participating, enough? Ha, of course not.

Being proficient like they want us to be gets you a ‘B’, how is that fair? Personally, I struggle sometimes to get 4’s in order to maintain a 4.0, and I am one who strives to get straight A’s, though not everyone is that way, or has that want. I have no problem going in to retake a test in order to get a 4. However, not every student has that desire to go in, so you’re average number is a 3. Thus averaging out as a 3.0 GPA Teachers have even said that it is much less common for them to give 4’s on things.

Since when did the difficulty of standards on a test determine our grade? If they think that the 4-point grading scale is helping us, they’re wrong. The reality is that it hurts most of us. For those who have continuously tried for the 4 level and always end up with a 3, it slowly starts to break down your GPA.

In the DMPS Grading Handbook, it says that a 3 level is “meeting standard”, yet in the grade book, a 3 is a B. If we are meeting the standards, shouldn’t meeting the standards be equivalent to an A?

The grading policy for DMPS is just a headache. There shouldn’t be a grade for each difficulty/standard. If I had to take a test with 30 questions, and I got 3 wrong, that would be a 90.1, now say you missed 3 on a level 2 question, you cant get higher than a 2.5, which is a B-/+

And although it is true that you can retake a test until you get a 4, after so many retakes, you would get pretty worn from trying to get a better grade.

Some may like the 4-point scale, but in my opinion, it’s just a hassle.